


Squid

by Lilsi



Category: The Bill (TV)
Genre: A Rat named Nigel, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:35:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24182206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilsi/pseuds/Lilsi
Summary: Post Sunhill.  Craig is dealing with depression. Will finding Luke again help or make everything worse.
Relationships: Luke Ashton/Craig Gilmore
Kudos: 4





	Squid

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfiction was once posted at Craiggilmore.co.uk a fan site no longer active, so to preserve this story and others, I am importing them to AO3. I did not want the loss of such a large amount of amazing and wonderful fanfiction, it would be such a waste to fans of Craig Gilmore and Luke Ashton to not have the opportunity to enjoy these stories as i have. Since the site is no longer active i have been unable to contact the creators but if you happen to be them under a new pen name and want the fiction to be removed please send me a note!
> 
> Story written by - Baxter

Chapter 1

From the outside

A person watching through the window of the pub would have seen this: Luke Ashton, clean and well presented, looking through the noisy crowds for the table at the end of the bar on the left. Luke scans and spots the right table and seems to stop sharp – Craig Gilmore is there, looking up, unsmiling. Luke moves towards him, the spring in his step so definite even a casual observer could see he is delighted. The man at the table, though, is not. His expression changes, a gloom seem to rise through him and his face drops a little closer to his chest as if he seeks to guard something.

By the time Luke has approached it is clear that Craig is not going to co-operate. Craig had planned for a evening of anonymous and non-committal congress that, if he had his way, would involve virtually no conversation and would not progress beyond midnight.

Luke and Craig speak, for lack of better description, for barely four minutes before Craig drinks from his beer and leaves.

On the Surface

In his dreams Luke used to come to Craig bright eyed, always brimming with excitement to see him. What problems there had been dissolved in the mists of the dream and the two were thrust, no explanation needed, into the vibrant core of an intense and sincere relationship.

When he’d wake up Craig would be deliriously happy for a few seconds then, as the dream disintegrated and life took over, he’d be squeezing his fists tightly to grind away the palpable disappointment he could feel.

After a minute or so Craig would be angry, filled with regret and embarrassment about The Whole Luke Thing, furious at himself for not being able to cleanse Luke from his mind and subconscious once and for all. He didn’t miss him, not anymore, he didn’t pine for him or wish things had been different, so it annoyed him that deep down somewhere inside there were parts that acted as if he did.

Then it changed in one afternoon. From that time Craig didn’t dream of Luke for five months.

And then he didn’t have too.

Underneath

Basically there are two types of people: complex people and easy people.

Rudimentary assessment could lead a reasonable person to assume that Craig Gilmore - conservative, solid, dependable, law-abiding – is an easy person. The same level of consideration could draw the conclusion that Luke Ashton – volatile, passionate, uncertain, impulsive – is a complex person.

Actually the opposite is true.

It’s nearly three years since Craig has seen Luke, three years since The Whole Luke Thing, blew his world apart. The Whole Luke Thing is part of Craig’s complex landscape, a horrid bleak area of his life that he keeps well hidden and visits only under great duress.

There are a couple of other notable places in Craig’s landscape that are just too ugly to face. Besides The Whole Luke Thing is the death of his mother just five months ago. One minute she was healthy and happy, next she was complaining of a terrible headache that throbbed in her eyes, then she dropped to her knees and died, a starry burst of clotted blood deep in her brain, hauling her from Craig’s life and settling her in deeply to the darkest and saddest parts of his landscape.

Sometimes the need to talk to her to just one last time seems to crush him inside and out. 

Next to her death is one horrible obligation Craig must fulfil in a few weeks time. It is too hard for him to start deciding how he will deal with it; he can’t even articulate it to himself. So far all he has done is marked the day on his calender with a small asterisk. Anything else is too horrible to contemplate.

Three years! For Luke it is like a huge statue in his landscape: he sees it everyday, is so used to seeing it and exploring it over and over that it has become one of his yardsticks: What I Did To Craig. Luke repeats this epitaph sadly whenever he making a decision about what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is bad, whether he will ever be happy or whether he is destined to be scarred with regret and longing for the rest of his life.

Regardless of a person’s easiness or complexity, life goes on. These days Craig works in at Hampstead Police Station and is planning to sit his Inspector’s Exams soon. He moved from his white townhouse in Sun Hill not long after he transferred. For a year or more he lived in Brent’s Cross in a tasteless, painfully modern studio apartment; when his mother died he cancelled his lease almost immediately, somehow linking his antiseptic surroundings with his sudden loss and overwhelming grief. He worked long hours then, way beyond the call of duty, delaying having to step back into the noiseless pale flat at any cost. 

Just a month or so ago he took a lease on a beautiful old flat atop a bakery in Golder’s Green. From his bedroom window he looks down over roofs and messy little London gardens; should he feel inclined to open his heavy dark green curtains completely he can see clearly up and down the whole street from his sitting room.

And needless to say his comfortable flat smells wonderful every morning. Craig is certain that waking to scent of new born brioche and sour doughs, hot sugary strudels and sticky buns, is one of life’s great unrecorded pleasures.

He looks about the same on the outside but deep inside him there is a ugly gaping tear in his landscape, a huge space choked with weeds of loneliness and these days Craig is too weary to try and fix it.

Luke is a bike courier, zipping around buses, dodging pedestrians, speeding from depot to banking firm to depot to insurance firm to international trading firm to stockbroker back to depot through rain and wind and hot yellow sun. He has powerful thighs and feels strange walking in civilian shoes.

He likes his job and he likes his home life too. He sees neither as permanent but in his curious straight forward way knew that he had problems to solve and so far, his home and job are what he has done to fix it. His rather ramshackle house is in a cheery, almost fashionable state of disrepair; he shares it with two other young gay men out at Pinner.

So on the surface it would appear that Craig and Luke have very different lives. Maybe so, but there is one big thing they have in common at the moment, and that is they both like to cruise Gaytime, the gay men’s internet meeting place.

And that’s how they ended up sitting at a table together in a pub in Notting Hill two weeks ago. Craig had searched under his usual specific criteria and was very intrigued to read the description of AshBoy78. Luke had in turn received a sweet, non-committal note from Boyo70, liked what he read and answered straight away.

Both Luke and Craig have had some wonderful, if temporary, liaisons through Gaytime.

It is safe to say that their joint encounter was not one of those times.

Craig was already seated when Luke spotted him across the pub. At first it was overwhelming disbelief for them both, then there was fear as Luke took his first step to Craig.

Then it was pure delight for Luke, who could not have been happier at seeing Craig once more. Craig was sullen, his face frigid & heart sinking at having to face the cause of one his worst nightmares again.

Luke’s awareness of Craig’s displeasure grew as he stepped closer and closer. By the time he reached the table it was patently obvious that it would be a short night.

There was nothing left to say to one another, not now, so they used words that are so worn and so tedious it was almost the same as if they said nothing.

“Hello,” Luke said.

“AshBoy78?” Craig answered, as if there might be a last minute reprieve.

“ ‘Fraid so,” Luke confirmed with a weak little grin. “Should have guessed Boyo70 would be you.”

Craig looked deep into his drink. “Why?” he asked no one in particular.

Luke didn’t know.

“Because you’re from Wales,” he said in a thin voice. 

“Hmmmm.” Craig seemed to agree.

“How have you been?”

“Fine.” Craig didn’t want to know how Luke had been but asked reflexively. “What about you?”

“Yeah, good. Pretty good.”

There was another two minutes of this painful, false conversing before Luke spoke up.

“This isn’t going to work, is it,” he said mournfully.

Craig was still staring in his drink. “Nope.”

“I’m so sorry,” Luke said.

Craig assumed he meant he was sorry about this unfortunate meeting.

“Not your fault.”

Luke folded his arms on the table and leaned forward. He wanted to say no, not this, sorry that I treated you so recklessly and so heartlessly, sorry that I let you go, tell me you forgive me. But he didn’t.

“Do you want me to go?”

Craig watched the tiny gassy bubbles rising in his beer. “Only if you want. No, I should go. I have to get up early tomorrow.” (That was actually untrue. Craig was not scheduled to start work until 10am.)

Luke was still trying to make small talk, still hoping it might magically transform in to big talk. “Still at Sun Hill?” he asked without thinking.

Craig looked up for the first time. “I transferred,” he said sourly.

Luke shook his head in disbelief at his stupidity. “Sorry, sorry,” he said again.

Craig is quickly and efficiently absorbing the details of Luke’s face and shoulders. Hair: very short. Skin: bright from the sun. Ears: left pierced, right soft and pink and nude. Eyes: still that eerie shade of copper that I can never quite remember, so pretty and rare it is.

“So you’re obviously out?” Craig asks.

Luke nods. “Yeah, out and proud and all that.”

“Good for you.” Craig takes a sip of his beer, likes the sharp taste and the perfect temperature so extends it to a long draught. He puts his now half emptied glass back on the table decisively.

“Well, better luck next time,” he tells Luke as he shifts his body in preparation to leave.

Luke looks up sadly. It is almost too much, to see him go so soon. He reaches out as if he can grab on to one final chance to make things right.

“Maybe we can meet up again?”

Craig’s movements become a little slower. He appears to be considering this, but when he speaks it is clear that he has had a definite feeling on The Whole Luke Thing for quite some time.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“No, of course not,” Luke says quickly. “Don’t blame you.”

Craig is standing up now. He looks at his beer again but decides against another swig. “Bye, Luke. Good luck with everything.”

“Thanks. And I’m sorry, I truly am.”

But Craig doesn’t hear. He is walking quite calmly through the happy noisy crowd, straight through the door, out to his car.

Luke sits at the table with the unfinished beer. He draws the glass over towards him and lightly touches the rim, over and over the place where Craig’s lips were.

An easy person would go home and turn on the TV and wait for tomorrow when the pain would have subsided. Complex Craig hops into his car, straps his seatbelt securely across his chest, kicks over the engine and drives all the way to Canterbury. He gets out near the city wall and walks around and around the old cobbled streets. Now and then he bites on his lips as strong streams of tears run down his face.

Luke goes home, finds that his housemates are out, makes himself a big mug of tea and sits down at the telly, aimlessly flicking from program to program. His eyes are transfixed by the images, his brain is whirring, his heart still earnestly plotting ways that he can make things right. He has many scrappy ideas and, quite suddenly, when he decides there is only one way he can make it right, reaches for his phone. 

The next day Craig is on the custody desk. He likes many things about being stationed at Hampstead – the environs are pretty, the station is very well administered, his relief are all competent, the residents are fairly quiet and mostly live in exceptionally nice houses – but best of all Craig loves the actual custody desk itself. It is very big and well constructed, there are always lots of working biros, the correct forms are within easy reach, and there is what Craig considers a safe distance between the nice desk and the cells.

Craig is doing the day shift. He has nine people in custody and four reports to complete. He taps at the keyboard, carefully checking each detail he enters.

One of his relief kindly brings him, unheeded, a cup of coffee and a gingernut biscuit at 11.30. Craig is thanks him warmly. The sun is bright and clear over his landscape for a few minutes.

Craig doesn’t take lunch until two. He was far too distracted, too lost in the dangerous parts of his landscape, to make his lunch this morning, so he buys a ham and salad roll and takes a seat at an empty table because he sees a newspaper folded up there.

Craig likes to read the paper over lunch.

He skims various things, is impartial to news of Kate Moss and the Green House effect and terrorists. He is still deep in the painful parts of his landscape, still looking for something from the other world to plug that huge hole of loneliness.

And there it is, on page 9 of the world news:

GIANT SQUID PHOTOGRAPHED AT LAST

The article told Craig about the mysterious giant squid, 20 metres long and eyes the size of dinner plates, that lives in the deepest uncharted parts of the Pacific Ocean. Scientists had finally developed a camera strong enough to withstand the deep cloudy floor of the ocean and watched the giant squid for three days. There were two indistinct photographs of a surprisingly elegant creature that might have been a giant squid or might have been an average squid, but in Craig’s landscape the heavy tides had already rolled in and the unbearable pain was slowly washed away by delicious warm currents as the giant squid floated past, its beautiful heavy body floating like a pearly bubble, huge tentacles trailing behind like ribbons, the massive wild eyes watching him with innocent curiosity.

Across London in a mild rain Luke artfully steered his very fast bike and dodged traffic while he mentally composed his first text message. We have to talk, he decided initially, but that was too forthright. I miss you, but that was just preposterous. Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease, but, irrespective of how perfectly the extended word summarised Luke’s feelings, it was just plain silly.

Do you think I could call you and talk?

Well, that seemed about right.

Luke thought about all the ways Craig might respond.

Meanwhile Craig is back at the custody desk, efficient and professional on the outside, dreamy and content on the inside as the pain in his landscape subsides.  
He has been assigned to draw up the next fortnight’s rosters and he tackles the task with a clear mind, remembering who works well together, who enjoys foot patrol, who is an early riser, the best area car drivers and who is best rostered out harm’s way in the CAD room.

He rosters himself on nightshift for the next week. In his mind this is because he knows it sets a good example for him to do more than his fair share of the hated nightshift, but deep in his landscape it is another way of escaping the miserable loneliness, now infected and rancid after the painful reminder of The Whole Luke Thing.

When he goes walks through his front door that night he stands at his bedroom window and looks down over the dusk as it gathers over the rooftops. He mentally maps out twenty metres and smiles as he can see just how big the Giant Squid would be.

Luke goes home and chatters with the more gregarious of his housemates, Lee. They can’t decide what to have for dinner so order a couple of pizzas. Later that night, still burping little puffs of garlic, Luke logs on to Gaytime and looks to see if Boyo70 is around. His strong shoulders drop slightly when he sees the user name no longer exists.

Chapter 2

Deeper

The stark differences between the easy person and the complex person were illustrated with text book efficiency in those early stages of Luke and Craig’s involvement.

Complex people like Craig often mask their true feelings with passive indifference but they are sensitive to their own feelings and sensitive to everyone else’s feelings too, so deep down in their landscape they suffer and burn. 

In his sad time with Luke, Craig continually dodged the obvious and struggled amongst the less obvious. He was terrified of his own powerful feelings, terrified of the feelings he sensed in Luke, terrified of rejection, terrified of approaching Luke too soon, terrified of leaving it too late, terrified that he should, terrified that he shouldn’t and ended up broken and bloodied when all his fears came true.

For the easy person – who is not necessarily any less sensitive or vulnerable than the complex person - the problems are no less frustrating. Here comes Luke, saying the first thing that comes into his head, skirting the less obvious in favour of the bleeding obvious, believing that if he stated something with passionate conviction it would have to be true sooner or later.

Luke bumbled through those awful months hardly aware of what was happening to him - barging forward, shooting his mouth off, agreeing to things that sounded right but that close analysis would have shown could never have worked. Before he knew it he was divorced, heart broken, miserable and humiliated, right back where he was years ago, as broken and bloodied as Craig and having to start all over again.

No doubt Luke has learnt more about himself but he has not grown complex any more than Craig has grown easy.

A few days after their unhappy brief meeting, easy Luke is ready to take decisive action about complex Craig.

It is 12.47pm on a Monday and Luke is sitting at Trafalgar Square in a half hearted sunlight, looking very handsome in his regulation lycra biking shorts and closely cut black polo shirt, vegetarian and pesto roll in one hand, his mobile in the other, his bike parked and chained at his side.

He is typing a text message with his thumb. Is it ok if I call you I would relly like 2 talk with you-Luke, his message says. He reads it back and changes relly to really.

Then he has a brilliant idea.

Luke saves the message in his drafts file so he can send it late tonight. That way Craig will get it early tomorrow morning. It’s always nice when you wake up and see a message on your phone. He will have time to think about it and then…

Suddenly Luke’s sandwich tastes so much better, the sun seems warmer, all kinds of things seem possible. While he watches the tourists and red double decker buses winding round that old monument, Luke thinks that all he needs to do to win Craig’s heart is to do all the things he didn’t do in the first instance. Luke smiles and plots, completely guileless, as he chews a particularly nice piece of dried tomato and eggplant. The bread is soft and fresh and the pesto sparks with basil and rich oil. I can have dinner with him, be attentive, do nice things for him that will make him happy and help him trust me. He’s a good man. I’d be proud to have him as my friend.

It seems remarkably easy when Luke thinks about it. It’s not that he has forgotten Craig’s steadfast reluctance to even see him again – he hasn’t – he just believes that if Craig is sad and uninterested, that can be remedied and put back to normal.

Over in Golder’s Green Craig is just waking up. He slept fairly well after his first overnight shift and is now slowly stretching his long legs, gently easing himself from under the sheets. He stands and reaches his arms towards the ceiling, lengthens his strong straight spine and gradually tilts his body from the waist, warming his muscles. He worked until six this morning and, although he still feels a little disorientated, is satisfied that the worst parts of his landscape are obscured by the job and his new schedule. He carefully rolls his shoulders up towards his ears, slides them down towards his waist and, when he is certain his body is awake, slips on some soft shorts and pads out to the kitchen.

It’s just after 1pm.

He has a big bowl of muesli and two pieces of toast then slurps a mug of coffee while he checks the shopping list adhered to the fridge with a magnet shaped like a fish. He checks the clock again before makes his way to the shower.

Later he walks up the high street to Sainsburys, clean and clear, concentrating on getting the right milk, choosing some fruit, watching other shoppers, anything to stop remembering his mother.

Supermarkets always remind him of his mother.

On his way back he stops downstairs and buys some bread rolls which he will incorporate into his main meal for the long lonely night shift.

Back home he holds a pencil tightly and carefully ticks the items off his shopping list. Then he allows himself the luxury of once more reading the giant squid article which, technically, he stole from the newspaper at work the other day. Craig has fixed this article to the fridge near his shopping list and has read it over and over. He has favourite parts:

The giant squid has six legs and two tentacles. Scientists agree that the tentacles are used by the animal to procure food…

Once more Craig sees the silent graceful monster easing through the deep ocean and any bristles of pain he felt in the supermarket are soothed.

Over on his neat kitchen table are three more articles he (technically) stole from other discarded newspapers he found at work, as well as four pages he has printed out from the internet.

At this stage he is not sure where he will keep his squid information.

Craig is punctual and starts his shift at ten that night. It is relatively quiet – he is custodian to a total of seven people and when he checks them at midnight he notes that all but one is fast asleep.

The one wakeful prisoner – a young man who is alleged to have assaulted his wife – will not sleep at all tonight.

It is almost 1am when Craig feels his mobile shuddering in his pocket. He can’t imagine who would be texting him at this dark hour and is surprised that phone says clearly on its colourful face:

One new message LUKE read now?

He reads Luke’s careful message several times, and realises that Luke must be awake.

He feels an odd connection with him for a few quick seconds.

He is about to delete the message but is irritated that Luke thinks he can send him a message at 1am, albeit a polite and reasonable message, so Craig replies

No. I don’t that would be appropriate.

And then he waits, holding the mobile, staring at the flat shiny face. All around him the station is still and calm.

Just 4 a few minutes i promise 2 just call u the once.

Craig wants to add the missing full stop and this urge prevents him from answering straight away. After a minute or two he writes

I’m at work. I can’t talk now. Go to sleep. 

And almost immediately his mobile rings.

“What,” he says wearily when he answers.

“Craig, it’s Luke.”

“I know who it is. I don’t want to talk to you.”

Luke takes a deep breath. “I’d really appreciate if you’d change your mind. I know…look, I know I was a bastard but…look, just once, a quick drink or something.”

Craig is silent, his landscape covers with clouds, the squid disappears. Luke interprets this silence as encouragement.

“We don’t have to go to Notting Hill. We can meet up anywhere you want.” Then Luke realises he has no idea where Craig lives. “Are you still in Sun Hill?”

“No I’m not,” Craig snaps.

Luke is undeterred. “Where are you?”

“How did you get my number?”

Luke answers a little clumsily. He feels as if once more Craig is the supervisor and he, Luke, the inept inferior.

“You gave it to me when we worked together, back at Sun Hill.” It’s true. Craig has Luke’s number too. Craig tries to remember the time they exchanged numbers, when they were on such terms that it would seem a feasible thing to do, tries to forget why he didn’t erase the number years ago.

Luke waits for the barking angry response but there is more silence so he pushes on. “Are you still living at Sun Hill?”

The clouds become darker, everything around Craig is threatened. “It’s none of your business where I live. What are you doing, texting me this time of night anyway? You’re being ridiculous.”

Even as the words come out of his mouth Craig knows he is being hostile and cruel. He expects silence and a grudging goodbye but that is not the response of an easy person.

“I’m texting you because I want to talk to you. I thought if I sent it at night you’d get it tomorrow and think about it for a while.” Luke is light, amicable. “I didn’t figure you’d be on the graveyard shift.”

Part of Craig’s landscape is illuminated by lightning and he sees his mother’s grave, the fresh mound of earth that covers her, the piles of dying flowers.

“I don’t know why you’re doing this,” Craig says. He sounds exhausted.

Luke’s answer makes it sound so easy. “I’m doing it because I want to make it right. I treated you really badly and I want you to know I’m sorry.”

“Well, I know now.” Craig is once more firm and immobile. “We don’t have to meet up.”

Luke looks around for another way he might get in but can find none. What seemed so easy is actually insurmountable and he is confused. The first thought that comes to his mind slips straight through his lips.

“Do you really hate me that much?”

Hate you? The thought can’t seem to get through to Craig. Hate him, hating Luke. Do I hate him?

He honestly isn’t sure.

“What do you want from me, Luke? We’ve been through all this and you made your choice. I don’t want to go through it again.”

“I won’t put you through it again. I promise you, I won’t. I did some awful things and I want to make it right. It would really help if I could talk to you.”

Craig looks at his watch and over towards the cells. He doesn’t have to check on the prisoners for another forty minutes. The corridors are quiet, no one is about.

“Okay, you’ve got five minutes. Say everything you want.”

“Sorry?” Luke is taken by surprise.

“I said, you’ve got five minutes. I’ll listen to you for five minutes. Then I’m hanging up.”

Luke falters, not sure where to start. A cyclone of images and events fly through his landscape. There’s no starting point, nothing he could say in five minutes or five days that would tell Craig what he wanted him to know.

Luke watches all the disjointed images and tries to pick the most important one but instead picks the biggest one, the one that does the most damage as it hurls through his psyche.

“I didn’t – my wedding day, when I got married. I really wish I hadn’t done what I did then, it was wrong and dishonest.”

Craig rolls his eyes. “I already know that. Maybe you should have told your wife. I know. Better idea. Why don’t you call her now and tell her you’re sorry and leave me out of this?”

All the things flying through Luke’s landscape settle gently on the uneven ground. The thought of Kerry causes immediate hurt, great big thorns of it, scraping him all over.

He doesn’t answer.

Craig sneers a little, satisfied that he has nipped this in the bud. “How is Kerry, by the way?”

“Haven’t you heard?” Luke asks quietly and the tone of his voice makes Craig worried.

“Heard what?”

“She died, Craig. She died a few months ago.”

Craig covers his eyes with his hand, drags it down over his face, angry, regretful. Suddenly his landscape is black, he wanders fearfully, groping for solid object to guide him in through the dark. 

“What about the baby?”

“There’s no baby. She miscarried.”

Craig feels the weight of his own grief suddenly lumbered with the grief of another. He thinks he will breaks but instead finds himself shaking with the injustice of bearing a pain he doesn’t own.

The lightning flashes and he can see again.

“Look, I’m sorry about what’s happened to you, but I don’t want to do this. If I’d wanted to meet up with you or hear your sordid confessions I would have contacted you ages ago. I don’t want to go on some guilt trip about whatever’s happened to you and I don’t want to talk to you about any of it.”

Luke tries to interrupt but Craig talks over him, sharpening his syllables to hammer his point home.

“Don’t call me again Luke. If you really want to show you’re sorry and you really want to show that you respect me then leave me alone.”

And he jabs hard at the button on his mobile that disconnects the call.

Luke lies on his bed for hours, half awake, half asleep, thinking about everything but realising nothing. Well, that was a complete disaster, he says to himself a couple of times.

And Craig, well, if you saw him you’d think that nothing happened. Outwardly he looks efficient, concentrating on his work, addressing the relief when they check in through the night, checking the CAD room to see there are no problems, watching over his prisoners.

Inwardly he rides a storm that is so dark and so uncomfortable he is barely able to feel anything. He reads the paper with his meal at 2.30am but there is no further news about the giant squid.

It is hard to tell what affects complex people. They grow so used to keeping their feelings hidden that even the most debilitating blows can fail to register on their faces.

Luke, on the other hand, was snappy and angry all the next day, dark sleepless eye rings hardening his face, irritation and frustration making his movements aggressive and cold. He purposely missed calls on his mobile, avoided the little meeting places around London where the couriers will gather and chat in the late afternoon. That night he sat glued to his computer, hunting ferociously and desperately on Gaytime for some non-committal and anonymous soothing. He finds this in someone called PumpingLeo who, according to his messages, is prepared to travel from Brighton to hook up with Luke.

Luke goes to bed with a sour taste in his mouth. He can’t understand why everything goes so wrong all the time.

But redemption comes for Luke in the shape of Lawrence Barker, a young man who is presented to Craig at 12.47am on the following night. Lawrence is maybe 24 or 25, blonde and handsome in a sulky kind of way, face down and nodding meekly as Craig reads the charges to him.

Lawrence, pedantic Constable Malory tells Craig, was arrested during a domestic dispute wherein he broke all his lover’s plates, most of the bowls, four of the cups, two windows and topped it off by assaulting a neighbour who burst through the door in her nightie to stop what she assumed was a murder. When the arresting officers arrived Lawrence grew more distressed (if such a thing could be possible) and hit his lover in the face, splitting his cheek and breaking his expensive spectacles.

Privately Craig thinks that Lawrence is not a criminal but just a bit unstrung. He believes a stint in the cells will do him good.

Craig checks on Lawrence at 2am. He sees the prisoner has wound himself into a tight little ball up in the corner of the bunk, his wiry arms wrapped tight around his knees as if they might protect him from the outside world.

When Craig checks on Lawrence at 4am he sees the young man sitting on the side of the bunk, face up.

“Is Allan alright?”

Craig has no idea who Allan is.

“Allan, my partner. Is he okay?”

“I don’t know,” Craig answers. I’ve not heard anything.” He sees the young face sag with misery and Craig’s heart softens. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”

Lawrence doesn’t have to wait long. Allan turns up at 4.27am to post bail for him. He is escorted by the pernickety, fastidious Constable Malory who privately drives Craig barmy but who, it cannot be denied, is an excellent police officer.

Allan talks fast and loud, as if volume and speed will make his statements all that more authentic.

“Talk to the Sarge,” Constable Malory says crisply. “He’ll look after you.”

“Good evening, Sarge,” Allan says nicely. Craig nods coldly at the greeting, showing his displeasure at the familiarity with a quick twist of his mouth.

Allan is probably 40, tall and dark with lavish streaks of grey though his once coal black hair. He wears a smart tweed jacket, a clean shirt and his heavy expensive prescription lenses, held together precariously with great bundles of surgical tape, are skew-wiff on his face. A small fresh white gauze is taped across his left cheekbone. When he smiles his ripe red mouth curls at the corners, allowing the misleading belief that he finds everything wildly amusing.

He hands Craig a stamped document that indicates he has posted bail for the amount of two hundred pounds. Attached to the document is a handwritten letter in which Allan has described his relationship with Lawrence and explained that the china smashing and subsequent assaults were a misunderstanding. At the bottom of the letter Alan states that he and Lawrence have been involved for three years and that Lawrence had recently suffered a bereavement – his younger brother had been killed in a car accident and Lawrence has subsequently been treated for depression.

Craig purses his lips when he reads the last paragraph then folds it back under the official bail document. He checks the date and initials it.

“You have to forgive them,” Allan says softly. “When you love someone you understand them and because you understand them you can only forgive them.”

Craig appears not to have heard this statement. “You’re accepting Mr Barker into your care?” he asks formally.

“I am,” Allan says.

Craig stands up. “Take a seat in the foyer over there and I’ll bring him out to you.”

Allan sits as he is instructed and listens carefully to the clanking and slamming as Craig rattles his keys and unlocks the cell.

Lawrence steps tentatively from his cell, nervous of Craig, terrified of what might happen next.

“This way,” Craig says coldly, and leads the young man to his new custodian.

The two civilians stare at one another for a few seconds – shamefully, reproachfully, embarrassed in front of the big policeman who just wants them to go – and then rush to hold eachother tightly.

“You bloody plonker,” Allan says with smiling, exasperated relief as he crushes the young man up against him. Craig watches with a dispassionate tiredness but somewhere deep down remembers what it feels like to be hugged.

“I’m so sorry,” Lawrence says and it sounds like he is crying.

They speak right into each other’s faces, stern or terrified statements that are drenched with relief, most of which Craig can’t hear or understand. He gives them 20 seconds and then snaps loudly.

“Mr Barker, you understand that you must report to the station next Tuesday at 9am where you’ll be required to take notice of any possible Court proceedings against you?

Allan has his arm around his partner’s shoulder. “Mary’s not going to press charges,” he says, his face slightly inclined to his lover’s. “You just have to show up for the books.”

Craig tightens his mouth again and continues his spiel. As he finishes each sentence, Allan breaks it down into simpler statements for his young man who is now exhausted, eyes closed, leaning against him.

When he has finished Craig walks them to the door. The couple discuss Lawrence’s hunger and his hope that he might have something to eat when he gets home.

“We’ll have to get takeaway, baby. There’s no plates anymore.” And Allan and Lawrence sigh with a little laughter and a little sadness.

“Good night,” Craig says harshly as he holds the slab of the security door open for them.

They appear to not hear him, but Allan turns around, looks Craig at plainly without fear or favour, addressing him as if he’s in charge here and not Craig.

“If you love them, you can only forgive them. That’s what love is mostly, forgiveness.”

“Good night,” Craig says more emphatically and he lets the door free from his grasp. It slams like an industrial explosion.

He walks purposefully back to his desk, files the forms, stacks some other paperwork, talks to some of the relief who come to check with him before their shift is finished, briefs the incoming Sergeant, tidies his desk. Efficient, careful, attentive to detail, his work is meticulous, his face completely clear.

Yet in his landscape, all he can hear and see is that mixed statement, that little mathematical equation that uses two of the greatest human strengths. Love is forgiveness, you can only forgive them, love is forgiveness. The words form a beautiful ocean and roll over him again and again, first as separate things - love, then forgiveness - but by the time he is at his locker and hanging up his uniform the love and forgiveness are indelibly bound and rushing all over him in brightly coloured waves.

Chapter 3

Currents

From one side of the picture it looks like a young man taking a call on his mobile in the middle of the City.

From the other side of the picture it looks like a man who, after several minutes’ worth of torturous personal debate and much pacing, finally picks up his phone and dials a number from the lounge room of his tidy quiet flat.

It is Thursday, not long after lunch. Luke is down in the City, standing outside the London Stock Exchange, his mouth open, his eyes fixed on his cycling shoes as he takes a call on his mobile.

He is listening very closely.

“I’ve thought about the way I’ve acted and I’m not proud of it. I think you’re right, and I think we should get together and talk. I think it would be good for us both, help put some things to rest,” Craig tells him.

Luke nods, a smile rises on his face. “Okay,” he says carefully, worried that if he is anything other than impartial Craig will cloud over again.

“I’m not sure what you had in mind, but I thought it might be nice to just meet up in a pub or, I don’t know, do you want have to dinner?”

“I’m easy,” Luke says with succinct accuracy. “Dinner’s fine, but the pub’s good too.” He listens to Craig hesitate and steps in delicately. “We could do both. There’s a pub in Soho where they do traditional kind of dinners – you know, steak and stuff – it’s really nice…”

Craig knows that pub. “The Clockwork? Yeah, that’d be good. Good idea.”

And so they arrange to meet on Friday night at the Clockwork at 7pm. PumpingLeo gets a raincheck and ends up meeting with another lad – monstersimon – and, since they have nothing further to contribute here, it won’t hurt to add that they were quite a hot item for nearly seven weeks.

Complex people and Easy people anticipate big events in different ways. 

On his last night of the 22:00hours to 06:00 hours shift, Craig spends his quiet moments obsessing over what he will say to Luke, how much he is prepared to take, how much of Luke he can actually handle over a meal. He worries he will lose his temper, or be subjected to one of Luke’s trademark careless comments, or that a memory of his mother will materialise on his landscape and the awful fat tears will start and he will have no control.

Now and then he berates himself for giving in to Luke on such a flimsy basis. Forgiveness, love. We were never in love, I don’t know if I forgive him.

So amongst bleak and inconclusive thoughts Craig wanders around the very deepest parts of his landscape, seeing shiny glimpses of the magnificent squid  
in the dark sea only once or twice.

Luke plans differently, tripping over the surface of his landscape, basking in the sunshine of forgiveness. For the rest of the week his heart is buoyant, his smile wide and genuine. He pedals hard, flying through slipstreams of buses and trucks, enjoying the rush of adrenalin as perspiration shines on his face in the long summer days. 

He composes a careful list, over and over and over, of all the things he wants to say to Craig.

On Thursday night he makes sure his nicest clothes are washed and ready.

On Friday night he has a long hot shower and checks himself carefully in the mirror, looking at his face, trying to see what Craig might see, whether he looks acceptable, attractive, worth the effort.

Before he leaves he sits on his bed and carefully writes his list on the palm of his hand. He reads it through twice, certain that nothing has been omitted.

Luke leaves the house flashing with health and cleanliness. His every second tingles with anticipation of seeing Craig again.

Craig runs through a number of courses of action when he wakes up in the early afternoon. They all follow a similar theme - calling Luke to cancel dinner and then quickly changing his mobile number so he’ll never have to deal with him again.

He is in the shower when he finally decides that the right thing to do is to turn up and have a nice meal and hear what Luke has to say.

While Luke is showering, Craig is flicking through the night time section of his wardrobe, where he finds his nice black trousers and his pale blue shirt. He combs his hair in front of the fridge while he reads about the big squid.

The giant squid appears to secure prey with its two tentacles, which scientists estimate to grow to 14 metres long. Video footage captured on the expedition show that the squid will wrap its tentacles around smaller animals in much the same way as a python will crush its victims. This revelation surprised the researchers, who had thought the giant squid gathered its food by opportunity instead of actively hunting.

Tonight Luke is at the table first. He looks around the room nervously from time to time, but mostly reads the truncated list on his right hand.

As he enters the small cheerful dining room Craig wonders why Luke is studying his palm. Deep in his landscape he is reminded how young Luke was when they first met all that time ago, and that now he acts older but still looks so young.

“Sorry I’m late, “ Craig says as he sits down.

“I don’t think you are,” Luke says nicely. He has ordered a large bottle of ale and pours Craig a glass.

“Cheers,” Craig says.

“Yeah, cheers,” Luke says shyly.

The restaurant is filled with warm excited bodies that heat the refrigerated air and cause bright dewy beads to form on their cold glasses. As Luke clutches his glass this precipitation slowly melts the careful little notes on his palm. When he notices the inky blur he closes his hand and tries to obscure it from Craig’s view.

Craig notices straight away.

“What’s that on your hand?” he asks. He thinks he can see some words but in the subtle amber light can’t quite make out what they are.

Luke looks down at his list and wonders if it will all go down hill from here. His throat constricts as he swallows his pride.

“I’ve got a lot of things I wanted to say to you. Some of them were, you know, well, a bit embarrassing, but they’re really important so I made a list so I remembered what order I had to say them in. I didn’t want to forget anything.”

He expects Craig to get up, shove his chair aside and storm off.

Instead Craig smiles, touched by the silly gesture, pleased that Luke had taken this seriously enough to categorise all the things he had to say.

Craig leans over and quite casually unfolds Luke’s right hand.

“Well, may as well get going. First one looks like…”

But he can’t quite read it.

“First thing is thanks for changing your mind.” Luke dips his face with gratitude that Craig has once more overlooked his mawkish attempts at order and, rather than mock him, tried to work with him.

And it went like that, Craig listening to each point Luke had to make, then checking Luke’s palm, trying to read the next point, asking Luke to clarify it for him. Occasionally he would respond, not with any great candour but honestly enough to add perspective to Luke’s explanation and clearly enough to give some general information about his own feelings.

The were up to point four (the aftermath – how I felt after you had gone) when the impatient waiter came back for the third time. He hates customers who are having first dates. They waste so much time.

“Are you ready to order yet?”

Luke and Craig scramble for the menu. They’ve barely glanced at it.

Yeah, absolutely, they both say. They pluck the first thing that seems marginally appealing from the creamy dense paper.

The waiter takes the order with maddening sloth. He makes them each repeat what they want, and, after they have made their orders, tells them what the specials are.

Craig has taken a dislike to the stroppy mincing queen and cuts him off. “Are you interested in the specials?” he asks Luke.

Luke shakes his head gently and takes a sip of his ale. He doesn’t much like the waiter either.

“Very well,” the waiter says with a barely contained fury and almost snatches the menus from them before he storms off.

“The service here is great,” Luke says with mock authority and Craig laughs politely. He tells Luke about a restaurant in Wales where the owners’ cat sleeps on the tables and only wakes up when the waitress slams the plates in front of the diners.

Luke laughs just as politely and tells Craig about the time when he worked in a fast food restaurant when he was still at school. Craig is fascinated by the tales of lax hygiene; it reminds him about a friend of his who went to a very posh restaurant in London and ordered the most expensive dish.

“He was just about finished the meat, he was putting the last piece on his fork - – and there was a huge caterpillar underneath in the gravy!”

“Gross!”

They tempered their restaurant stories when the waiter bought their main courses. The large white plates are piled with meat in rich juices, small fluffy piles of mashed vegetables, shreds of green herbs and little heaps of tasty home made relishes.

Both men are hungry and pleasantly surprised at how nice the food is. 

“This is great,” says Craig, who has roast and Yorkshire pudding.

Luke has beef Wellington. “So’s this.” He scoops up a bit on his fork and leans over. “Here, try.”

So they taste each other’s food, and then start to talk about what they can cook.

“Mostly I’m a vegetarian, though,” Luke says after he’s explained the kinds of food he likes to make.

Craig stops eating, thinking that Luke doesn’t know what a vegetarian is.

“You’re eating beef,” he points out.

Luke grins, his eyes shiny and sharp. “I have lapses,” and Craig laughs out loud, genuinely amused. It feels strange, the first time he has laughed in months.

By dessert, the discussion of Luke’s list seems to have changed tenor somewhat. Luke talks briefly of Kerry, her sad demise, but while Craig expresses gentle sympathy he doesn’t seem interested in the detail. He asks more about how Luke feels, looking deeply in his eyes as if he hunts a specific clue.

Luke answers as honestly as he can. “I hadn’t seen her for a while, but it was a horrible shock. I felt terrible, it was really sad. I mean, we had been…well, you know, it wasn’t….she said she wanted to, I mean…oh, I don’t know. It was really confusing and, you know, really sad. Her father took it very hard. She was his only kid.” He searches Craig’s face to see if this is what Craig was seeking.

“You must miss her,” Craig says.

Luke prods his tart with his spoon as he tells how he was outed.

It is hard for Craig to comment. He finds the situation offensive and distressing. “I didn’t know that happened to you,” he says quietly.

Luke takes a small mouthful of tart. The things in his landscape move about and for a short time he sees Kerry watching him in the distance, then looking away.

“I always felt I got what I deserved after what I did to you.”

“No, no,” Craig says definitely, his eyes stern, looking down. “No. I would never have wished that on you.” He pokes briefly at his pudding, almost letting it go but he can’t. He lifts his face, and sends his eyes straight to Luke. “No way, don’t think like that. No one deserves that. Doesn’t matter what you did to me or anyone else. She married you, she was supposed to love you. You weren’t a bloody possession with a warranty for Christ’s sake.” Craig puts his spoon down and has a small sip of water. His landscape ripples, the giant squid is thrashing somewhere in the background. “Sorry, I don’t mean to sound angry at her now she’s dead but she should have treated you better.”

Luke says nothing. He always thought that if he got to tell Craig about how he was outed Craig would laugh, or at least have thought it fair retribution. He is surprised to see how strongly Craig reacted and for a moment his thoughts are twisted. Craig’s voice brings him back.

“So what happened? After she outed you?”

Luke explains the sad months where everything tumbled into a heap and forced him to start over once more. He speaks with some sadness but no bitterness, explaining the process as one that could not have been made different any more than it could be avoided.

“So I started again, really, got the first job I could where I didn’t have to think much, and found myself somewhere to live.”

And then he lifts his ink smeared hand to Craig and smiles so beautifully, but now there is great regret in his eyes. He points to the ham of his palm, the last thing on his list.

“I’m sorry about what I did to you. I know what I did was so wrong and I wish I could undo it but I can’t. I want you to know that if there’s one thing in my life I could change it was how I treated you.”

Craig tilts his head in acknowledgment, a little hypnotised by the beauty and sincerity of his smile and the small tones of sadness marbled through his voice.  
He says thank you very quietly, and for some seconds there is a sombreness at the table.

Luke decides he may as well try one last time, and now is going to be as good a time as ever.

“I suppose we could never really have a relationship now,” he says quietly as he scrapes his bowl of vanilla cream.

Craig agrees instantly, his face inscrutable. “Oh God no. Not now.” He has a tiny whisper of a smile, an agreeable, friendly face that does not judge or accuse. “Too late, I guess.”

“Of course,” Luke’s face is calm but his heart crushes into a tight wad. “Still, it would have been fun.”

Craig carefully collects some rice pudding on his spoon. He doesn’t answer because he doesn’t think it would have been fun. He thinks that what ever transpired between he and Luke would have produced a similar result to what they got – broken, bloodied, out for the count.

Luke is concerned when there is no answer. “You don’t think it would have been fun?” he asks earnestly, almost pleading.

“Well, you were in a pretty difficult place,” Craig says without looking up. “And I was on the rebound…no, I think it would have been bad. Why? You don’t think it would have been fun, do you?”

“Oh, no,” Luke lies. “No, no fun at all. No.”

Craig shrugs. “Relationships are hard work. And any way mine never work out. How’s your tart?” He spoons more pudding into his mouth. He doesn’t want to talk about relationships anymore. 

“Really nice. Here, try some.”

Craig agrees the rhubarb tart is extremely nice. He offers Luke some of his rice pudding and then they talk about gardens and their homes for a bit, then Luke talks about Lee and James, the two boys with whom he shares his house.

“Are they a couple?” Craig wants to know.

“Sometimes.” Luke pulls an exasperated face. “Every time I see one of them I have to check. One day they’re on, one day they’re off.”

He is surprised how interested Craig is in Lee and James’ inconsistent relationship.  
After he has told him more of his home life, Luke, carefully gathering the last delectable morsels of rhubarb tart, asks casually, “So what about you? Where are you living now?”

Craig’s answer is interesting not because of what he reveals but what he withholds. He tells Luke about the Golders Green bakery, his lovely flat upstairs, his view over the street, the nice bathroom in his flat, the custody desk at Hampstead – but he doesn’t mention a word about his mother. He doesn’t mention his depression, he doesn’t mention how, most days, he honestly believes that he will never be happy again.

He makes his life sound comfortable and pleasant. Luke, easy and interested, has no idea that anything is missing. Not yet.

Later, as they finish their coffee, Luke is talking about living way out in the suburbs and how sharing with two boys who are not sure if they are in love or not can be a drag. Craig listens, watching Luke unwrap a dinner mint and carefully place it in his mouth, the soft tip of tongue slipping underneath.

“Still,” he smiles as he breaks his dinner mint with his front teeth, “Mum said I can always go back and stay with her!”

The small comment is a knife through Craig’s ribs; for some tiny seconds he completely detests Luke, is consumed with smoking jealousy that Luke has such easy and instant access to his mum.

He tinkers idly with his spoon as he stumbles and trips in landscape, his head moving slightly as if he just listening and agreeing, but deep inside he is hunting frantically for something to say. It’s been such a productive and worthwhile night. It’s been so long since he has been able to sit and talk with anyone. He doesn’t want to ruin it, doesn’t want to go home with more hurt and unhappiness.

Help comes in a silent, hulking shadow, easing towards him through the deep cold sea.

“Did you see the giant squid in the paper the other day?” he asks Luke casually.

Chapter 4

Adjusting the camera

“It was good to see you again,” Luke says outside the pub. “I really appreciate you coming to talk with me. Thanks.”

Craig shrugs his shoulders shyly. “No, you were right. I’m glad I did. It was good.”

They stand out in the warm summer air, somehow suspended in the lively Friday night that is unfolding for everyone else.

Luke looks around him, briefly at Craig and stuffs his hands in his pockets. “Well, I guess I should be going,” he says half heartedly.

“Yeah, me too.” Craig is looking towards the tube station. He hasn’t decided whether he will take a bus or train or maybe walk for a bit. It’s such a nice night. Somewhere far away he sees the moon in the corner of his landscape, white and pure, a friendly light over his life.

“Well, bye,” and Luke extends his hand with confidence and warmth. “I had a good time. It was really good to catch up and everything.”

“It was, thanks.” Craig reaches his hand over and braces himself to feel the elusive skin against his own once more.

“I’m going to read up on the squid,” Luke smiles. “It sounds really interesting!”

They shake hands in the middle of London, people and lights all around them, then Craig leaves abruptly, walking down Frith Street, certain not so much of which way he is headed but what he is leaving.

Luke watches after him and it occurs to him then that maybe something is not quite right. That something nags him all the way home. He’s always held Craig in such a distant reverence so it seems odd to him that Craig might have foibles or troubles or things to hide.

As the tube rattles further and further into the suburbs, Luke dissects the evening’s conversation, looking for evidence of people in Craig’s life. His face creases as he realises that Craig didn’t really talk much of friends or mates or even his family. Luke stretches his mind back all that time ago at Sun Hill and tried to remember Craig talking about his family or his friends but all he could recall was Sean and Carl, and one small oblique reference to the kind of car Craig’s dad had when he was little. 

Once more things rush through Luke’s light colourful landscape, and now, right in the centre, floats a giant squid with its tentacles and legs waving furiously, comical and pointless amongst everything else. Luke sorts it all, looking for the obvious amongst the unconnected but he can’t see anything yet. All he decides is that since he’s come this far, there’s no reason why he can’t push it a little further.

And anyway, Craig didn’t say NOT to call him.

Craig has walked to Leicester Square before he realises that he’s tired. He takes a taxi, sees so many cheerful happy scenes but thinks only of his bed. When he gets home he leaves his clothes in a disordered pile near the bathroom door, stands under the full blast of the shower for ten minutes with his head low, arms outstretched and supporting his weight against the wall. His skin is still a little damp as he’s pulling the sheets right up over his ears; he’s curling on his side, folding his arms across his chest and clenching his eyes closed as he feels his loneliness in gruesome spasms.

Luke is still wide eyed at 2am, working through all the things in his landscape. Every now and then the giant squid stops, legs everywhere, staring straight at him. Luke stares back.

He didn’t say NOT to call him.

Saturdays and Sundays are the worst for Craig. Unless he is working they are nothing but great lumps of time that, no matter how hard he tries to keep busy, will fill with memories of his mother. He used to drive down and see her every third or fourth weekend. He certainly spoke with her every weekend, ringing any time to see how she was, taking a call from her when he doing this or finishing that. 

His two brothers - older, married, children - call occasionally and he knows he could drop down to visit them if he wanted. Both brothers have left a few messages for Craig over the last couple of weeks; every time Craig has committed to call them back soon, tomorrow, when I get home from work. But they have lots of things to live for and Craig feels like some kind of appendix, one more family issue they have to look out for after they have worried about their jobs, their mortgages, their children.

So their calls go unanswered.

And there are friends, none of whom know that Craig’s mother has died. He told no one, and now as her death spins further and further into the past telling anyone seems irrelevant. In any case, Craig justifies, everyone seems to be travelling or in love or getting on with their own lives. They don’t want to hear about me.

Craig resents his loneliness but nurtures it, ignoring his emails, never answering his phone and when someone does manage to corner him he’s too busy to catch up; maybe later, maybe next month?

This weekend is going to be bad because, Craig knows, next weekend is going to be horrible. He will not think about what he has to do, he will not, he won’t and the more he ignores it the heavier the burden grows.

He sorts his washing, he makes coffee, he opens the heavy green curtains and looks briefly over the street. He smiles as he imagines how four giant squids would fill the street from one end to the other.

Later in the morning he logs on to the Gaytime as Dragon35 and looks about for someone who might be ready and willing to pass some time this evening.

He reads AshBoy78’s profile twice, anonymously.

Just as he is growing interested in someone called 9inchJason his mobile rings. Craig is so distracted he half expects to hear the well endowed Jason when he answers.

“Craig? It’s Luke! You busy?”

Craig feels a little guilty and immediately logs off from Gaytime.

“No, not really…why? Is something wrong?”

Luke twists his palm a little and clears his throat.

“I thought...well, I was just going to buy some plants for the backyard, and I’ve found this garden place up near your way and thought you might like to meet up. That’s if you’re not doing anything, because it’s such a beautiful day and anyway you know about plants so you might be able to save me from wasting money on, well, you know, on the wrong plants.”

Craig lifts his face, the sun comes out all over his landscape.

“Wrong plants? What, like Triffids?”

“Triffids? Can you buy those in London?”

The question is so genuine, so Luke. Craig smiles as he is reminded of the things he understands about Luke.

“I don’t think so. But we could probably find something else. Where’s the garden place?”

Easy people, with their quick assessments made from all visible evidence, can have the advantage in matters like this. Had Luke called Craig and tried to manipulate him to meet up, it is likely he would have been met with surly resistance.

Luke made his straightforward request based on the following clear facts before him:

I need some plants. The backyard here is a mess.  
↓  
Craig had an orchid once and liked it enough to fight his ex for it.  
↓  
Garden centres are good place to visits if you need plants or if you like plants.  
↓  
Craig might be lonely. He was good to me and if he is lonely and needs some company I want to be able to do that for him.  
↓  
I’ve truly missed him and really enjoyed spending time with him last night.  
↓  
It’s a clear warm July Saturday. I want to be outside, doing something. With Craig, preferably.

Everything fitted together.

Craig’s agreement with Luke’s request question was based on much less accessible information:

Luke is good company. He’s optimistic and interesting and easy to talk to. I had a good time last night  
↓  
(Buying plants is tricky. You have to know what to look for, and you have to know what to kind of care they need, and if you can give that care.)  
↓  
Life can be tricky for single gay men. Sometimes you don’t know who your friends are.  
↓  
My mother has died. I feel lost and I can’t believe how hard it is to be in the world without her. I’m desperate for any kind of comfort.

The garden centre Luke had found was over in Woodford. Craig was not certain how Luke had decided it was close to Golder’s Green but it didn’t matter. He picked Luke up from King’s Cross Station, a hint of a joke on his half smiling lips as he unlocked the car.

“What?” said Luke when he hopped in the car, anticipating some fun.

“Show me your hands,” Craig asked with happy eyes.

Luke lifted his chin in mock indignation and raised his well scrubbed palms. “I didn’t have to prepare anything this time.”

They talked with familiarity similar to that which they enjoyed last night, perhaps a touch less strained. It was good, wandering around aisles of hearty plants and Craig was knowledgeable. He suggested some carrots and onions, some small tufty herbs, pansies, ranunculus, jasmine and stock.

“Read the packets, they tell you how and when to plant them.” Craig showed Luke the little tables on the back of the seed packets, then showed him where the potting mix was, and then showed him what kind of pots work best.

Luke spent 47 pounds.

It cost Craig, who was smitten by some extremely nice window boxes, 31 pounds, but was worth far more in that it was one of the best afternoons he’d had in several months. Next weekend and its misery was far away.

Craig drove Luke home all the way to Pinner. On the surface this gesture was an exercise in kindly good manners but deep down he was very curious to see where Luke lived.

“Gorgeous, isn’t it,” Luke smirked when they pulled up out the front.

Craig nodded. It wasn’t the kind of house he would choose to live in now, but he might have ten or twelve years ago.

“Do you want to come in?”

“No, no, I really have to get going.” Craig stares straight in front of him and into his landscape, the night unfolding endlessly, just him alone in his flat with the next weekend looming like a terrible wave.

“You sure? Lee and Jimmie probably aren’t home…if you want I could cook you some dinner! Nothing glamorous, you know, but if you’re not fussy…”

Craig turns away from the dark ahead of him. Luke looks so hopeful. “Yeah, okay. I would. That’d be nice.”

Luke could not have been happier showing Craig his house, his room, the bathroom crammed with Lee’s extraordinary array of beauty products, their laundry, Jimmie’s room where he screen prints his tshirts, the kitchen, the small cramped backyard where Luke would plant tomorrow. It was as if, Craig thought, Luke was showing him all the improvements he had made, showing Craig that he was interesting, independent, grown up.

Dinner was not quite so grown up, but tasty and served with love nonetheless.

“This is great!” Craig says truthfully as he tucks into his egg, sausages and chips.

Luke is modest and gracious. “It’s okay. You’ll have to come back for a proper dinner after we’ve done the shopping.”

Their talk now is relaxed and they can cover smaller, more intricate bits of their lives with ease.

“Oh, I meant to show you what Jimmie gave Lee for their first anniversary,” Luke says.

Craig raises his eye brows by way of indicating curiosity. His mouth is full.

“It’s a rat, a white rat with pink eyes called Nigel.” Luke pokes his fork in the air to indicate Nigel’s whereabouts. “He lives in their bedroom upstairs.”

It’s a bit too close to the bone for Craig. “They have a rat in their room?”

“He’s in a cage,” Luke says casually.

“I wouldn’t care if it was in a tank, there’s no way I’d share my room with a rat.”

“Are you scared of rats?”

“I just don’t like them. So this was an anniversary gift?”

“Yeah, just after I moved in.” Luke shovels in some more egg, chews his food to a manageable size and talks some more. “He’s actually really cute. He’s not like rats you see in old warehouses and stuff. You can hold him.”

“NO thanks,” but Craig is smiling. “What’s wrong with a box of Roses, I want to know.”

“Roses? Are they your favourite flowers?”

Craig adds a touch more salt to his eggs. “They’re my favourite chocolates.”

Luke is a rather surprised. “You mean the Roses chocolates you can buy anywhere?”

“Yeah! They’re great chocolates. They come with that little list so you know what’s in each one.” He adds a little Worcester sauce to the sausages. “ I hate having to guess what’s in chocolates. I like some guidance.”

There is a little silence as they eat and sprinkle salt. They’re both leaving their chips until last.

“What about you? Do you like chocolate?”

It turns out that Luke is more of a wine gums man, but he has a bit of a thing for chocolate ice cream and chocolate sauce. “I can drink chocolate sauce straight from the bottle,” he sighs. “Not that I do,” he adds with a mock haste when he sees the look on Craig’s face.

There’s no dessert, but Luke finds some biscuits and makes coffee with a rather stylish Italian percolator that sits on the stove. It was a present from Lee to Jimmie last Christmas.

“They sound like a nice couple,” Craig says.

“Yeah, they’re nice guys, but it gets a bit tense when they break up.” Luke stretches back in his seat, full of heavy food and very content.

“Do they really break up that often?”

Luke shrugs. “Two, three times a week maybe.”

“Serious?”

“Yep.”

Craig thinks about living around that kind of trauma three times a week. “Oh well,” he decides, “some couples like that kind of drama.”

“They sure do,” Luke answers. “The whole street can hear them making up every time they have a drama.” Luke sits up straight and leans on his elbows, slightly inclined towards Craig. “Are your neighbours nice?”

“Hardly know them, really,” he says eventually, mostly because he wasn’t sure how to explain that he doesn’t really know anyone where he lives. Not even the fat cheery baker and he goes there nearly every day.

Luke tries lots of questions like this, asks about other friends, do you ever see Sean, what happened to Carl, but in each case Craig was not so much guarded but entirely uninformed. He hadn’t really seen anyone for a long time, Sean moved back to Manchester or so he heard, Carl – no idea, I’ve been so busy with work.

So Luke tried a different train of thought.

“Do you get to see your family a lot?”

Craig seemed to close down.

“No, not as much as I’d like.” He stood up and started stacking the dishes. “Here, I’ll have to get going, but I’ll give you a hand with these first.”

Later that night as he lay in bed, Luke went over and over it, everything rolling over his landscape - fried eggs, Nigel, chocolates wrapped in shiny cellophane. In the midst of it all there’s the squid, eyes huge and accusatory. Luke couldn’t see that he said or did anything wrong but he must have, Craig just seemed to slam shut and couldn’t get away quickly enough.

And Craig, he feels as if his landscape is closing in on him, threatening to bury him alive or drown him. He can’t get to his bed fast enough, wraps himself tight in his sheets and sleeps in a smothering heaviness for nearly twelve hours.

Chapter 5

Setting up

He didn’t say NOT to call him.

Industrious Luke is out in his little yard on 9am on Sunday morning, carefully patting soil around tender seedlings, squinting as he reads the potting instructions, watering just enough, as Craig had explained.

Later in the morning Jimmie, who has been watching with quiet admiration from the kitchen window, brings him a glass of lemonade.

“I’m being an American housewife,” he tells Luke smugly as he hands over the frosty glass.

“Cheers!” Luke downs the drink in three great gulps. It’s thirsty work, gardening. “Where’s Lee?” Luke asks as he hands back the empty glass.

“That fuckwit. Who cares,” and Jimmie turns on his heels, all Luke needs to confirm that they have indeed broken up again.

Craig’d be interested to know that, Luke decides as he plants the pansies. He didn’t say NOT to call him.

Indeed, Craig, quiet and suffering at his small table in the dining room, would love hear from Luke. He half decides to call Luke himself, to apologise for his sudden exit last night, to try and explain why he is so depressed.

Craig tries to find a starting point but can’t: once he admits it, his mother’s death leaves the private dark bed of his feelings and becomes public knowledge, out there for all the world to see. Once it’s open for everyone’s scrutiny Craig must present the façade of a man who can cope but he wonders if he will ever be strong enough to carry he burden of his loss.

And then there’s next weekend.

He slumps his head in his hands and sits there for nearly thirty minutes, stagnated in his misery.

When he finally rouses himself he decides not to call Luke and bore him with all this. Instead sets about a whole series of tedious mindless tasks - cleaning the bathroom, emptying the dishwasher, sorting his clean washing – and doesn’t notice how much time he spends thinking about Luke. Occasionally he will remember a bit of last night’s conversation and smile; other times he will seriously consider some aspect of Luke’s life. He dwells on Jimmie and Lee for a long time, wondering if Luke ever locks himself in his room, away from them, unable to bear the nuances of their coupledom.

In between these absorbing thoughts the next weekend rises infrequently to form a shadow over his thoughts, blocking out everything, causing him to stop what ever he is doing and cover his eyes in an effort to make the thought go away. I won’t think about it now, I just can’t cope with it now and the thought will pass, only to grow bigger and more threatening when it next appears.

So when Luke calls him late that afternoon to report on his gardening and to update him on Jimmie’s and Lee’s ever changing status, Craig is so grateful for the diversion; when Luke casually suggests that they could meet up after work on Tuesday night at a nice Thai place he knows near Wembley, Craig doesn’t hesitate.

Monday is good for Craig. Whenever the next weekend rose before him he could straight away remind himself that he was meeting Luke tomorrow night for some interesting exotic food. If he held the thought in the right way his mouth would water.

Monday was good for Luke too. Before he rushed out the door that morning he had one last look at his beautiful garden, all alive and full of promise.  
It made him so proud and he knew Craig would be impressed. He couldn’t wait to show him. This pleasant thought travelled with him on the train and in his landscape was his beautiful garden in full bloom, flowers larger than life, delicate songbirds, huge trees heavy with blossoms and in the centre, atop one of the trees, was the giant squid, legs and tentacles waving madly, deliriously happy.

We should have a party, Luke smiled to himself as he stared out the window and into the endless black shadows of the London Underground. We should have a party this weekend.

hhhhhhhhh

Thai Tanic is so plain, so bland and uneventful in appearance that you cannot help but think the food is going to be exceptionally disappointing. There are white plastic tables and chairs, lurid vinyl table cloths and preposterous pink plastic orchids in tacky vases set haphazardly around the room. It looks cheap and unplanned and suggests greasy badly prepared meals.

Craig, a veteran of Thai restaurants, knows better.

“This looks perfect,” he says to Luke as they enter the drab room.

“I hope you like it.” Luke is trying to be mysterious but he can’t wait for Craig to learn how fabulous the food is.

There are only two other occupied tables but the patrons have already ordered and from the kitchen there are fearful hissing sounds, the flames of the gas burners lighting up the whole room while on the warm air float magical scents of sesame oil, basil, lemongrass, peanuts, fresh vegetables, sizzling lean white meats and coriander.

Luke and Craig share three dishes; Craig makes a welter of the Pad Thai, which is one of his favourites foods in the world.

“I love this stuff,” he says with tense satisfaction as he spoons the rich nutty noodles on to his plate.

“Me too! So good!” Luke answers as the flavours rush through his mouth. 

They talk only of the food for the first few minutes, squeeze limes over the noodles, heap more rice on their plates, take careful spoonfuls of the juices from the green curry.

“Have you recovered from the night shift?” Luke wants to know.

“Yeah,” Craig answers in between mouthfuls. “It’s hard, you get out of synch with everything.”

“Was it a four day shift?”

Craig shakes his head. “I started on Sunday night, finished Thursday night.”

Luke nods, says, good, that’s good, and gets ready to put the next part of his plan in action.

“The garden looks great,” he tells Craig.

They talk about planting and the satisfaction of watching the first little buds appear, and this takes them right through to the fabulous sticky rice with banana and coconut cream dessert. Then Craig wants to know about Lee and Jimmie and is relieved to know that, at least when Luke left the house tonight, they were a couple again. He was less interested to know that Nigel was downstairs with them watching television.

They split the bill and Craig doesn’t even ask Luke if he wants a lift – he just points to the car and they walk across the road together.

They are two streets away from Luke’s house when Luke finally has the courage to ask his question.

“Look, since the garden looks so great, we thought we’d have a party this weekend. You’re welcome to come! Jimmie and Lee would like to meet you.”

Craig grips the steering wheel tightly, says nothing as he stares out at the huge darkness that is moving slowly towards him.

Luke panics. He expected an instant, easy acceptance.

“Don’t worry, Nigel will be upstairs, he hates parties.”

Still Craig says nothing. In a few seconds he pulls the car over near Luke’s house.

“Do you not want to come?” Luke asks.

“I’ve got something else on,” is all Craig says.

Luke instantly sees another man, someone else, an obstacle he hadn’t even considered. It makes his insides cold and blue.

“Well, you come early, or maybe you want to come around later…it’ll go all night, you can come anytime” –

Craig’s voice is clinical and precise.

“I can’t. I’ve got something planned and I won’t be around.” He turns around to face Luke but his eyes seem dead, unseeing. “I had a good time tonight, food was great. Thanks.”

The summary dismissal is jarring and everything in Luke’s landscape tosses upward in a whirlpool of confusion. No words come to him and the frustration and hurt he feels present as churlish sarcasm.

“Yeah, great. Thanks. See ya.” And Luke gets out the car quickly, slams the door and walks straight inside.

If Craig had been alright he would have called him back and smoothed everything over immediately. As it was, it was all he could do to clasp the steering wheel with white-knuckled intensity, his tongue jammed with depression while the last shreds of his will forced down the sadness that he would know this weekend.

And that was it for Craig. He drove home through the night with the sour awareness that Luke probably wouldn’t contact him again, trying to concentrate on that – losing Luke, having him in such strange circumstances for just a little while only to lose him again. It proved uncomfortable and it didn’t make the weekend go away.

When he got home he turned on all the lights, left his clothes all over the flat without even realising he was undressing, showered in almost scalding water and once again his body was still scattered with drops of water when he slipped between his sheets. He shivered a little, had tangled unhappy thoughts for a few seconds then got out of bed to look for his mobile, which he found in his jeans near the bathroom door. He lay in bed watching the face for a long time but only the time changed.

When he finally fell asleep he wandered through his landscape continuously, hunting for the giant squid but saw it only as a tiny flickering silver movements deep in the ocean. He tossed and turned, his pain nearly completely unfettered, winding around his heart and ready to crush him.

Chapter 6

Focus

Luke was angry before he even woke up on Wednesday.

He wants to complain to Jimmie and Lee but finds them sitting silent at the breakfast table, each pretending the other doesn’t exist.

So Luke has to sort through his landscape by himself, dodging all the things that fly around him – plates of Pad Thai, pansies, onions, Nigel, pieces of branches and random leaves, Lee and Jimmie, the garden centre, glasses of lemonade and the giant squid, running around on eight legs like a cartoon character, chasing and threatening everyone. Craig isn’t there, and no matter how Luke tries to find him there are only blank spaces that seem to fill with the other debris in no particular order.

It’s a slow process, thinking. Luke continues his sorting all day as he flies through traffic and dodges pedestrians, delivers envelops and parcels, talks to receptionists and takes calls on his radio. 

By the time he’s finished work, Luke has realised he has no idea why Craig is being so cagey and he has decided that he wants more definitive answers. He has also realised that there is no reason he can’t call and ask and in fact keep asking until Craig comes clean.

Nor is there any reason that such discovery be unfriendly, which he why he stops at Sainsburys as he walks home from the tube and buys a box of Cadbury’s Roses.

When Craig comes home that night he thinks he might just go to be straight to bed. He wanders through his flat for a few minutes, pokes through the largely empty kitchen cupboards more out of habit than genuine interest, flicks through his mail, tosses it aside and picks up his squid information.

Scientists managed to lure the squid with specially prepared baits. It made repeated attempts to release itself and in the process tore both its tentacles before it was free.

Craig still can’t understand why there has been no admission of shame or even regret from the scientists for hurting the elusive and compelling animal. He’s not surprised the giant squids hide so deep in the ocean.

But in his landscape the squid is struggling in shallow waters. Craig gently puts his pages of squid information back on the table and feels though his pockets, hunting for his car keys, his phone and wallet. He puts the phone on the squid information, looks at it for a second or two and, clutching only his keys and wallet, heads back outside.

He drives to Oxford and wanders amongst students, past the noble imposing colleges, up the main street, down through the mall, then back around the college three times. He drives home slowly, listening to the radio, flicking from station to station as he hunts for dialogue, conversation, people talking about things that prevent his own thoughts from taking hold.

And again, when he gets home, he turns on all the lights, plays some music, leaves his clothes everywhere, showers until small scarlet stains show on his fine skin and then tucks himself deep in bed, counting down until Saturday. He tries to consider that it will soon be Sunday and it will all be over but at the moment it seems unlikely that Sunday will ever get here.

He wonders if he should get his mobile but he can’t face yet another nick of disappointment, checking messages and seeing nothing. So it isn’t until he is leaving for work on Thursday morning that he sees Luke called three times last night, left one message and sent two texts.

As Craig is reading these messages, Luke is positively simmering on the train. One minute Craig is no where, then he pops up out the blue on line, then he hates him, then he doesn’t, then he disappears again. Luke stands amongst all the things flying in his landscape, angry most of all that Craig isn’t there.

He feels his mobile vibrate in his pocket.

New message CRAIGG read now?

Luke almost erases the message in his haste to open it.

Sorry I missed you last night. Went for a drive.

That’s it? Luke scrolls down, looking for more detail. Went for a drive? Where? With whom? Why? It makes Luke angrier, on the surface because there’s no feasible explanation for Craig missing his calls, but deep down because Luke is certain now that there is someone else and that Luke will never have the intimacy and the right to know all of Craig’s movements.

And worse still, no matter how sincerely he tells himself that it doesn’t matter, Luke believes he will never be the someone else and that’s all that matters.

He tries calling Craig when he gets out at his station but gets the message bank. He’s not sure what shift Craig is on or what kind of roster. He listens to Craig’s voice but leaves no more messages.

Work, as is often the case when you would really like to attend to something important, is busy. One of the couriers is off sick so Luke gets stuck with a raft of companies over near Regent street as well his own morning round. The traffic is appalling, summer shopping crowds make it impossible to get any speed up.

At about 11.30 he takes a quick break near Bond Street at a little juice bar he knows but has barely finished his drink when he gets a call from the depot for a parcel to go urgently to Tufnell Park. Luke almost ignores it but then he remembers where Tufnell Park is.

The parcel is delivered at 1.17 and Luke, although he has made no conscious plans about where he will have his lunch, is already slipping through the back roads down towards Hampstead. Nor does he consider what he will actually say when he gets to Hampstead Police Station so when he finds himself standing at the desk he sounds a little confused.

“Can I see Sergeant Craig Gilmore, please?” he asks politely of the front desk officer.

The Front Desk Officer doesn’t move. “If you have a parcel for him you can leave it with me.”

“No,” says Luke, although now that she mentions it he wish he had the chocolates with him. “It’s a personal matter.”

“Oh.” The Front Desk Officer slides her fingertip down the list of internal numbers and takes an unnecessarily long time to locate Craig. Luke’s heart begins to beat quite heavily as he waits. He still has no idea what he will say.

“He’s not answering,” the Front Desk Officer says after a minute. “Hang on.” So she calls the CAD room and learns that Sergeant Gilmore is out with Constable Malory, speaking to a householder on the other side of the Heath who has been burgled.

“He could be gone for a long time. Do you want to take a seat?” She indicates the rather clean and welcoming foyer area that is filled with neat pamphlets and discreetly displayed community information posters. It occurs to Luke that Sun Hill was really quite a dump when you think about it.

He shakes his head. “No, no matter. I’ll call him later.”

The Front Desk Officer becomes aware that once more she has handled this badly because she has not got Luke’s name or learnt why he is here.  
“Would you like to leave a message?”

Luke is already on his way out, his cycling shoes making cheery little tapping noises on the smooth tiled floor. “Just tell him Luke called.”

“ ‘Luke called’ ”, she repeats, and writes this neatly on a small square piece of paper. When she looks up to say goodbye she is just in time to see Luke heading off on his sleek bike.

Craig and Constable Malory don’t get back to the station until nearly 4pm, by which time the Front Desk Officer has already left for the day and one of the new probationers is handling the front desk duties.

Craig may not have got the message at all if he had left, as is his custom, by the back desk around at the custody desk. He chose the front desk exit because a number of officers were gathered down near the back desk, making impromptu plans for a meal down at the local Tandoori house. Craig has no energy to field a grudging polite request to join them for dinner, no energy either to be ignored and hear the group chatter soften as he walks past and they avoid inviting him.

The Front Desk is a better solution all round.

“Sarge!” the young probationer calls excitedly as Craig walks past quietly. “There’s a message here for you!”

Craig is roused from his intense distress for a few seconds. He barely notices the young constable, who he thinks is called Michael or Mark or maybe Mitch.

Luke called, he reads.

“When?” Craig asks.

Michael or Mark or Mitch doesn’t know. Ordinarily Michael or Mark or Mitch would have felt the full blast of Craig’s displeasure over sloppy messages that omit important details like time, date and purpose. Tonight, however, Craig is so close to breaking point he doesn’t even consider it.

“Thank you, Constable,” he says firmly to Michael or Mark or Mitch.

“Night Sarge!” Michael or Mark or Mitch calls out.

Craig doesn’t hear. He is already submerged back in his landscape, deep in the dark hills, overlooking a cemetery that covers everything he can see.

Luke is ropable, hanging from the straps in the tube, his body swaying, bumping and bumped by other commuters as the train shoots through the tunnel. He wants communication, details, reasons, explanations and all he has is some half-arsed statement about going for a drive. There is so much going on his landscape – rain storms, dust storms, Nigel, fried eggs, uprooted shrubs, Kerry staring him down, the giant squid thrashing and wagging its legs in accusation – that he has lost sight of the root of his anger and knows only that it has swollen to ridiculous dimensions, ready to explode any minute.

Why don’t you just fucking call me? Luke grinds his teeth as he stares at his stubbornly silent mobile and, when still nothing happens, he hits redial and tries Craig again.

Craig has just stepped out of his car at the back of his flat when the chime rises from his pocket.

“Hello, Luke,” he says quietly. “Sorry I haven’t been able to call you” –

But Luke will have none of it.

“Look, if you’re seeing someone else just tells me,” he says angrily. Other commuters around him lift their head slightly as they are drawn into what could be a very interesting piece of conversation.

“I’m sorry?”

“Craig, I’m a big boy. You don’t have to keep secrets from me. If you’re seeing someone else just tell me.”

Craig stops still in his landscape. The giant squid rises quietly, his massive eyes peering just over the surface of the murky pond he is currently trapped in.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“We’re getting on really well, I ask you to a party and all of a sudden you’ve got other plans.” As the words come from his mouth Luke he realises he is being ludicrous, making these kinds of demands with no basis at all. He tries to soften it almost immediately. “I just wondered why you didn’t want to see me.”

Craig leans back against his car. “I told you, I’ve got something on this weekend.”

“What?” Luke wants to know. “Are you seeing someone?”

Craig breathes deeply. The giant squid turns uncomfortably in the shrinking pond and the cool dark water rises, spilling out neatly over the uneven edges. Craig fumbles in the dark, his hand tight on his car for support.

“It’s my mother’s birthday,” he says in a husky voice that doesn’t seem to be his.

Luke closes his eyes, smiling, his face embarrassed and relieved. “Oh! Right! Is there a family do on? Are you going to Swansea?”

And when Craig answers Luke is drawn deep into his own landscape where he stands shivering as it too grows dark and frightening.

“She died in February. We had a christening for my brother’s baby and Mum went home early because she had a headache. My brother told me she was leaving but I was talking with an old friend there and I didn’t offer to drive her home. I didn’t even say goodbye.” Craig stops, grimacing, and all Luke can hear is a sigh. “I thought I could just call her when I got back to London. I stayed at my brother’s house and left for London early the next morning. When I was half way home I got a call from my brother who went around to check on her and she was…she went home and must have…”

Luke’s face is still and pale. The giant squid is glaring at him with hatred, the earth is bare and barren, the trees are skinny dying sticks. Kerry appears sharp and luminous, her pale blue eyes filled with blame and loathing. It’s all about you, isn’t it Luke, she says, her lips puffed and lisping. Always you, never any body else.

“Oh fuck I’m sorry,” Luke whispers.

“I haven’t been to the grave since she was buried.” Craig’s voice is thick; Luke’s not sure but he thinks he can hear the small side effects of tears. “I’m going to drive down early on Saturday morning and take her some flowers.” And there it is. His head is light, spinning as all his energy and breath flows straight to his landscape, trying to quell the storms that batter him now.

“Oh,” Luke says, Oh.

“That’s why I can’t come to your party.” Craig looks up and sees the yellow lights in windows around him as people’s lives move into the night. Shadows, light, noises and scents – it seems to Craig that there is every sign of life in his world except real people.

Luke’s voice reaches out to him like a beam from a satellite. “I’m so sorry, I had no idea.. why didn’t you..” but at that moment he understands everything, why Craig didn’t tell him, what pieces were missing from the picture. Now he can see the whole scene and Luke’ s natural practicality and kindness goes in to overdrive. “What can I do to help?” he asks immediately and through the horrible dark mists the little comforting warmth that Craig feels is not the offer but the sincerity with which it is made.

“Thanks, but there’s nothing. I just have to go and see her and…I just wish I didn’t have to.” Luke can hear what he saying. I wish she was still alive, I wish this hadn’t happened to me. I wish I could withstand this immeasurable grief.

“I don’t know what to do,” Luke says softly and Craig just listens, heavy clear tears rolling down his face.

But sometimes we know a lot more than we realise. Luke lets Craig go with a gentle voice. “You call me if you need anything,” he says, even though he knows Craig is best left alone at the moment. “You call me if you need me to do anything. I mean it, call me.”

Craig closes his eyes and watches as the sad giant squid sinks slowly into the small cramped pond. “Thanks Luke. Maybe I can call you when I get back.”

“Call me whenever you have to,” Luke says. Everybody around him on the train is wondering exactly what has happened here, and everyone is touched in their own way by the little streaks of goodness and concern in Luke’s voice. It reminds all of them in one way or another of kindnesses they have known in their lives.

After the call has finished Complex Craig stands outside in the warm summer evening for nearly ten minutes. His thoughts are shapeless, twisted, incomplete, his landscape grey and lifeless.

Easy Luke has calmed considerably. His thoughts are perfectly formed, direct and important, coming to him in precise chronological order as he decides what to do. In his landscape he sets the plates on tables, places the squid gently in a big glass tank, tucks Nigel safely in a little box, takes Kerry’s hand and kisses her soft glowing face. You know I’m sorry, he tells her again.

He is just sorting Lee and Jimmie in his landscape as he walks in the front door. He finds the real thing, both of them, half dressed and arguing on the staircase. It appears they were getting ready for a night out but were interrupted. Nigel is perched on Jimmie’s naked shoulder, twitching.

As always, it is impossible to tell exactly what they are fighting about. The cause never seems to be their focus, instead they abuse and attack each other over how they feel, what they think.

“You’re a totally selfish bastard,” Lee calls from the landing. Jimmie stands two stairs from the ground floor, his pale skinny back curiously vulnerable.

“Oh, fuck you, you stupid prick,” Jimmie yells back. Nigel wobbles a little as he tries to keep a hold on the slippery bony surface of the boyish shoulder. “You ruin everything, all the time.”

Luke stands at the door and listens, but this time does not creep past with the usual hunched embarrassment he employs when he unwittingly interrupts their fights.

He walks calmly over to the foot of the stairs and addresses them both.

“What is it with you two? Why do you do this to each other every day?” They both stop still, too astonished to turn their anger to him. Luke continues. “You’ve both got what everybody wants. Christ knows, I wish I had a boyfriend to give me presents and take me to dinner and everything…you two have that on that toast and all you do is fight and swear at each other and call each other horrible things.” Even Nigel is still, watching Luke with his shiny little pink eyes.

Luke raises his hands slightly and drops them in a perfect representation of resignation. “You’re both really great guys. You really crack me up Lee, I love hanging out with you, and Jimmie you’ve got such a generous, you know, a really generous streak, like the other day when you brought me that lemonade when I was in the garden, I really appreciated it. I mean, you’re great guys and you look so great together and all you do is fight and hurt each other.”

The two young men are transfixed. Only Nigel’s snowy little whiskers move. Luke looks from Jimmie to Lee and back to Jimmie sadly, as if he sees for hundreds of miles into their future, across all the horrible aching injuries they will inflict on each other.

“One day,” Luke tells them gravely, “one day, one of you is going to die and the other one of you is going to have to live with the fact that you had everything and now it’s gone.” Luke had not expressed this quite as elegantly as he wished but it didn’t matter. Both young men draw their breath quickly, each about to protest but the severity of Luke’s prediction pierces their hearts and they are swamped with the terror of loosing each other forever. Even Nigel looks worried.

“Why don’t you just kiss and make up and go out and have a great night and instead of bitching about stupid things that don’t matter, really enjoy what you’ve got?”

Jimmie and Lee mutter indistinctly, looking around them, at their feet, then their eyes catch across their stairs. The thought of hurting each other for another second seems unbearable.

Jimmie is just about to fly up to his lover when Luke walks over and lifts wriggly Nigel from his shoulder.

“I’ll give him his dinner,” Luke says quietly. Jimmie takes the steps three at a time and the bedroom door has slammed shut before Nigel and Luke are in the kitchen.

Luke makes Nigel a wonderful little rat banquet, arranging his special nutritious rat pallets on an old plate with two different types of cheeses, pieces of biscuit, a crouton, a small rat sized piece of apple and a little bit of raw cabbage.

“Bon appetite,” he tells the rodent as he settles him in the corner of the kitchen. Nigel scoffs appreciatively, holding little morsels in his delicate tea rose paws. Not even the passionate din upstairs disturbs him.

Now everything on his landscape is clear so Luke can concentrate on Craig. He makes himself a big round of toast and strong pot of tea, but Craig is yet to appear on his landscape. Luke searches but all he can hear is the soft, stuffy breaths he heard earlier in the evening.

Out of nowhere Luke sees his mother, laughing and waving in her work apron, her hair rich and brown, her face so happy. Suddenly all Luke wants is to be with her; he wishes he had gone straight to her place after work. But all is not lost. He pulls out his mobile and sits and chats until the battery is flat.

Later that night the house is quiet. Luke treads softly into Jimmie and Lee’s bedroom, finds them both tangled up together, not quite covered by the sheets, their mouths slack in their heavy sleep. Luke smiles when he sees their hands are loosely clasped. He tiptoes carefully over the well appointed rat house and slips Nigel into his home.

“Night night,” Luke whispers as he gently turns off the light.

Although he has everything sorted and is still flushed with the affectionate conversation he shared with his mother, Luke lies in the dark for a long time, thinking of Craig, alone in his flat, struggling to stay afloat in a tide of grief.

“Do you think I should do anything?” Luke asked his mum after he told her all about Craig tonight.

“Well, that’s up to you,” she told him. “What would you want from your friends if you were in the same position?”

He thought about it for a long time; the thought flicked through his subconscious in coloured flashes while he slept. He dreamt of parties where there no guests, of beaches where the tide had gone out so far all he could see were oddly shaped rocks in the powdery sand, he dreamt of jungles and valleys and wide open plains.

He held the thought all Friday too, thought about it as he pedalled from job to job, spoke with people who handed him parcels or took parcels from him, thought about it as he sat in down in Covent Garden on Friday afternoon when business has slowed down and all the couriers gather in one spot and chat.

He was on the tube home when Luke finally decided that there was only one thing he could do to help Craig. He sat the decision in the middle of his landscape, in the custody of the giant squid, and as he admired his work it felt like he had already made up his mind it when they had spoken with Craig last night.

When Luke got home on Friday night Lee and Jimmie surprised him by making a special three course dinner and announced that Luke was their guest of honour. Nigel was sitting on the back of the rickety chair, a little silvery ribbon around his vanilla neck.

“You guys!” Luke said with barely concealed pleasure. He ate well and abundantly , for he needed a lot of fuel for the next day.

Chapter 7

Subject

By Friday evening, Craig had become separated, completely removed in his approach to even the most mundane things. All day his actions had appeared calm, offering no clue that there was anything wrong. He spoke clearly, gave his orders crisply, checked paperwork and files with his usual care and diligence.

When he got home that night he undertook a few of the tasks he’d normally do on Saturday morning – sorted his washing, loaded the dishwasher, put clean sheets on his bed – with an automated indifference.

Before he went to bed he laid out some clean clothes. He looked through his wardrobe, through his tshirts and jumpers, guessing that since the last few days had been warm tomorrow was likely to be warm as well.

Then he spied a small battered case tucked away in the corner of one of his shelves and the enormity of what he was doing tomorrow came back to him. He looked up, stiffening his spine and hardening his shoulders, biting his tongue hard as the tears came.

“I have to do this,” he said to himself. He waited five seconds, a little longer until he eyes seemed alright and folded back his bed sheets.

He set his alarm for 5.15. He would leave at no later than six am; if the traffic was good he would be there in about three hours.

Once or twice, as he lay in bed, he tried to think about other things he might do after he had visited his mum but he couldn’t work out how long he would spend at her grave. Initially he thought he’d just take some flowers and walk away, his back towards her and out of that place as quickly as possible.

Then he wondered how he could possibly leave her there – it was bad enough knowing that she was there and that was the only place he could see her; awful when he remembered how hard it had been to leave her last time, alone in the cold, another plot covered with dying flowers amongst thousands of others.

His landscape was deep and grey as he fell asleep. There wasn’t much to see; no trees, no colours and no giant squid. It seemed to have disappeared.

When his eyes first opened the following morning he felt enormous relief, a false sensation that perhaps he might be able to cope after all, but the feeling shrunk and disintegrated within seconds as he woke properly.

He tiptoes around his flat as if he might wake others, as if he had forgotten there was no one to wake, nothing to disturb. No food interested him but he made himself drink a cup of coffee, strong and sweet to keep him focused, so hot it burnt his tongue.

Keys, wallet, phone. He checked his phone again but there was no message from anyone, no connection with the outside world.

He thought maybe he might call his brothers when he had visited the grave. Silly to go all that way and not visit or at least try and visit.

As he stepped carefully down the stairs he wondered if his brothers suffered like he had. He wished it was in his power, in his realm of possibility, to ask them. He fidgeted with the lock on the door that led to his car space outside; it was sticky sometimes, you had to jiggle the key to get it to open. It would be easier somehow if he knew his brothers suffered as he did, but then they have wives and children, people to help absorb the pain and offer the salve of love and concern and empathy.

When he opens the door the frail early morning catches him unawares. He looked up to the light sky and felt it all, understood that it was so hard not just because he loved her so much, not just because she had gone so suddenly and he never said goodbye, not just because he felt, in some ill informed way, that he could have prevented it had he just driven her home, but because he had no one to help with the grief, no one to comfort him, no one understood.

He was alone.

He sorted his keys through his fingers, looking for the remote lock, pointed at the car and there was Luke, dressed and ready for anything with a rather full backpack, leaning against the passenger door.

The small clicking chirrup as the car unlocks rings through the empty carpark.

Craig walks over slowly, shaking his head.

Luke has prepared for this carefully. He knows that grandiose offers and elaborate platitudes might work with lesser men but nothing except the complex truth will satisfy Craig. He speaks up quickly, before Craig can protest and refuse.

“It’s a long drive,” Luke says firmly, “and it’s a really hard thing you have to do. You mightn’t be up to driving the whole way or you might get really upset or anything might happen. You should have someone with you just in case. You don’t even have to talk with me, I just need to know that you’re safe and that you take rests on the way and all that.”

Craig looks back down at his keys. He wants to protest but some of what Luke says is true. Driver fatigue can be fatal. His concentration might lapse, sharing the driving could be a good idea.

Luke sees that Craig is considering this so he adds a more potent, and more persuasive, argument.

“And it will be really hard , Craig. I haven’t been through quite what you’ve been through these last months but I’ve seen it lots of times, and I know what it’s like to lose someone suddenly.”

Craig nods, still looking at his keys. “I’ll be alright,” he tells Luke but he doesn’t sound like he believes it.

“You probably will. I would have been alright, I suppose, if you hadn’t looked out for me at Sun Hill, but it meant a lot that you did look out for me and you looked out for me and helped me because you wanted to, and you thought it was the right thing to do. I think it’s the right thing that I come with you today and look out for you. I’m not going to be tellin’ anyone what I see or hear and I won’t mention it to you ever again if that’s how you want to cope with it, but I think it’s really important that there’s someone with you.”

Craig hesitates, gently feeling the keys one by one and Luke lays down his final and most effective sealant.

“Your mum wouldn’t want you to do this alone.”

It’s the first time anyone outside his family has mentioned her, the first time Craig has heard her related directly to him since she died. It’s excruciating, mostly because he knows it’s true - she would never want him to suffer so badly on her behalf. He wants to swear at Luke, tell him to just fuck off and mind his own business.

But when he looks up he sees only kindness and best intentions that, when he nods his head and says, okay, yeah, okay, cover his shivering heart like a small blanket.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Luke is true to his word. He sits quietly in the car, looking out the window as the streets of London stretch and yawn in the early summer morning.

The first fifteen minutes is amicably silent. Craig thinks only about the getting on to the right motorway; Luke thinks okay, one down, that’s the first hard bit over. Luke has calculated that there are two more hard bits to come.

Craig breaks the silence quiet unexpectedly.

“Are Lee and Jimmie on or off?” he asks.

Luke turns with narrowed eyes and tight mouth. “Jimmie and Lee got into big trouble,” he tells Craig with a strict voice.

“What happened?” Craig is all ears as Luke tells of how he read them the riot act, how they made up once and for all, and how they thanked him with a particularly nice dinner.

Craig listens and approves. “Are you on a mission to save everyone?” he asks Luke, but he means it nicely.

Luke considers this. “I’m in a position to help people at the moment,” he answers, thinking about that, liking how it sounds and so he expands. “I was in a bad way when I left Sun Hill, like I told you the other night. Lots of people helped me then and sometimes, y’know how it is, you can forget how important it is to be able to rely on people.”

Craig nods, thinking of how many calls he left unanswered, how many people he has shut out since his mother died. Only Luke, keeping his foot in the metaphorical door, managed to get inside to help him.

“And anyway”’ Luke continues, “they’re great guys, Jimmie and Lee. They’re lucky to have each other and they didn’t seem to appreciate that.” Luke straightens in his seat a touch and smiles out at the scenery. “So yes, I’m on a mission to look after people.”

Craig’s lips twitch a little. The thought of Luke as a crusader brings him serious, private delight. “Who else are you going to save?”

Luke stares out the window. He sees lots of people out even this early in the high summer morning, jogging, walking, exercising with their dogs.

“Whoever needs me,” he says decisively. He balances just the right amount of mirth and frank commitment in his voice.

“It was good of you to come today,” Craig says. “What time did you get there?”

Luke isn’t sure if he should own up to this but decides he will not sully the morning with half truths. “Quarter to five.”

“I wasn’t even awake at quarter to five,” Craig says.

“I know,” Luke answers. “I saw your light come on just after five. But I didn’t want to miss you.”

“You’re lucky I didn’t decide to leave at ten.” Then something occurs to Craig. “How did you know where I lived?”

Luke turns and grins. “You said the bakery in Golder’s Green. There’s only one – I know that because I checked the phone book. When I found the bakery all I had to do was find your car, which I figured would be around the back or in a lane nearby. I found your car, then that I saw the door to the flat upstairs and you said you lived on top of the bakery so I figured that’s where you lived.”

Craig grins too. “Excellent police skills!”

Luke tilts his head. The compliment puffs him a little, the friendly tone makes him relax.

“So what’s in your bag, Constable?” Craig asks. They’re nearly at the entry to the motorway.

Luke’s face crinkles with a wide smile. He loves Craig calling him constable, it acknowledges their past and the good things they have in common.

“Never you mind about that,” Luke says in a matronly tone.

“Come on, tell me what’s in the bag.”

There lots of things in the bag and, after dragging out the teasing suspense just long enough, Luke fossicks and shows Craig the different things he’s carrying.

There are some personal items (wallet, phone, house keys, sunglasses), some cds (in case music is needed or appropriate in the car), some dried fruit should they need a light snack, a bag of wine gums if they need a more serious snack, a bottle of water and Luke’s fleece, should Wales be less warm than London.

Craig thanks Luke for being so well prepared. “The wine gums are a nice touch,” he says.

“I thought so.” Luke puts his bag carefully on the backseat. He hasn’t disclosed all the contents because he doesn’t want to make Craig sad, but there is also a small box of tissues, a small bottle of whisky because Luke couldn’t think of any other medicinal solace quite as effective, and the large box of Roses chocolates he bought the other night. His plan is to leave these with Craig when they finally get home tonight. Luke is hoping that is that, rather than Craig having to lie in bed fretful after his long sad day, he can eat some of his favourite chocolates in bed, have a swig of the good stuff and cry all he wants to.

But that is for the last hard part of the day, when he has to leave Craig alone, and Luke mentally files this way back in his landscape, amongst the orderly colourful scenery that blesses him now. 

Even so early in the morning there is already lots of traffic heading to Swansea.

“Everyone is going to Wales,” Luke observes.

“It’s a wonderful place,” Craig answers.

“I’ve heard this,” Luke says. “But I’ve never been myself.”

Craig pulls a face of outraged horror. “What? You’ve never been to the most beautiful place on Earth?”

Luke turns and smiles. Craig can’t quite see him as he watches the road but he senses the radiance, the goodwill right next to him.

“Well, yes, I have been to London – I grew up in London, which is the most beautiful place on Earth – but I’ve never been to Wales.”

“Well, you’ve got something to look forward to,” Craig tells him, quite forgetting for a moment the sad reason that sends them there.

After an hour or so they are well on the way, not far from the Severns, not far from home. The two men have talked easily about all kinds of things: Luke’s job and the fact the company owns the bike, not him, so he has to leave it at work every night, Craig’s flat and the fact he has not yet got chummy with the baker .

“I’m shy,” Craig explains.

“That may be so,” says Luke, “But if you get friendly with him he’ll start giving you a discount, or maybe free sticky buns”. For some reason the thought of free sticky buns made them both laugh loudly.

And they talked about Carl, who still annoys Luke.

“He used to hate me at school. He was one of the cool kids and I was one of the naff kids. But I think we both knew the other was gay, even when we were really young,” Luke said.

“I thought he was a bit jealous of you,” Craig said. “He used to talk about you like you really looked down him.”

Luke rolled his eyes. “He was a complete knobhead. I did look down on him.”

Craig laughed.

And they talked about serious things too.

“Can I ask something that might be a bit uncomfortable? You don’t have to answer.” Luke looks straight ahead, straight down the motorway.

“Yeah, okay.”

“Are you going to see your dad down while you’re there?”

Craig has a sad little smile. “He’s with mum,” he answered.

In his landscape the big squid comes rushing out from the trees, arms waggling and scolding at Luke.

“Oh, shit,” Luke whispered. “Sorry.”

“No, no,” Craig was eager to sooth him. “It’s fine. My dad died fifteen years ago.”

“Really?” Luke didn’t mean to sound shocked but it was the last thing he expected to hear.

“He was a builder,” Craig explained. “He worked on a lot of the new housing developments they built around Swansea and in Cardiff in the sixties and the early seventies. They were done on the cheap and a lot of the building materials were full of asbestos. Dad got mesthothelioma - actually, a lot of the blokes he worked with did – and it kills you really fast.”

“What’s that?” Luke you knew asbestos made you sick but he didn’t know how.

“Asbestos is a fibre, and what happens, all these guys who work with it breathe it in every day. The fibres literally hook into the surface of the lung. Eventually – like, years later – the fibres sort of get infected and the lungs literally start to shatter and you can’t breathe. They get tumours too, and the only thing they can do, because the pain is so bad, is fill the gap between the lung and the tumour with talc.”

Craig remembers his dad in his last days. He was with him every day, adjusting his oxygen mask, talking about nothing special.

“So he got mestomo – what was it?”

“Mesthothelioma. They diagnosed it in March and he was dead on the first of June.” Luke watches closely, mindful of where the tissues are but Craig seems very calm about it. “it was fine, we were all with him.” Craig starts to laugh, remembering it. Luke panics just a for second, worried that Craig might be going into a hysterical fit. “He was at home, in my bed, actually, ‘cause it was downstairs and easiest for him to get to, and we all just sat with him – me and my brothers and my mum – for about the last eighteen hours. The doctor came a couple of times but we all knew he was going. He knew too, and to be honest he was really looking forward to it, he was so sick.” Craig smiles as he remembers his big brave father, and continues the story. “Anyway, we all wanted to hold his hand. Mum got one, obviously, and my brothers – I’ve got two brothers - were all trying to get his other hand. I mean, not disrespectfully, but sort of pushing each other out of the way. And dad looked up, and I took his oxygen mask off for him so he could speak, and he had this look on his face that he’d get whenever he was joking, and he said, “Sit still, you silly bastards, you can all have a go at holding my hand when I’m dead.” And we laughed, even Mum, and then he just laid his head back and died.”

“So he died while you were all laughing?”

Craig is smiling, his eyes just a little bright. “Yeah, the last thing he did was make us all laugh.”

It was a nice story for all its sadness, and it touched Luke to see how satisfying the memory was for Craig.

“Anyway,” Craig says, taking a deep breath, “Enough of that. Want to get a cup of coffee?”

They stop at a huge service station at the side of the motorway. Inside the restaurant there lots of families, children bickering, truck drivers reading last night’s Mirror over their big breakfasts and a couple of tourists, picking at toast.

The coffee is appalling, bitter and burnt, tipped from a cloudy old percolator on the counter.

Luke thinks he might eat something but is not tempted by the choices.

“You hungry?” he asks Craig.

“No, not really. But you have something if you want.”

Luke reads the menu behind the counter again.

“I’ll just have coffee.”

They sit in a booth that is fitted with puffy red vinyl seating; small tacky stains of something dark and thick are sprinkled indiscriminately across the greying surface of the table.

Luke makes a joke about the number of Michelin hats this place might have.

Craig, busy stirring white sugar into his muddy coffee, half hears the joke but he wants to talk about something else.

“What about your dad? Do you ever see him?”

“I saw him once after I left Sun Hill,” he says briefly, leaning back, spreading his arms across the back of the seat. “He came around to my mum’s house, like he does when he wants something, and I told him that he ever came near any of us again I would kill him.”

Craig is taken aback. “Is he that bad?”

“He’s a lying pusbag and he still treats my mum like dirt.” Luke looks around the room, his eyes stopping at different men, all of whom might be fathers. “I wouldn’t really kill him. But you met him, didn’t you? Kerrie said you did. You know what he’s like. He’s just a conman.”

Craig nods. He stirs his coffee and tells Luke about the ecstasy tablets.

Luke beams at him. “You were going to fit him up?”

“I told him I was going to fit him up. They were just headache tablets. Scared him, though.” 

“Good.” Luke looks at Craig with something like gratitude, something like envy. “You were lucky to have a good dad.”

Craig agrees. “I was. He was a good man.”

“Did he mind that…did he care, when..” Luke hasn’t quite got the question right and thinks for a second. “Was he okay with you being gay?”

Craig shrugs. “I think he would have rather I was straight, but yeah, he was alright.”

“What did he say when you told him?”

Craig lifts his face; there are lights in his eyes and his accent for a second becomes strangely gruff and Welsh. “He said, You like men? Well, you must have got that from your mother.”

Luke laughs.

“No, he was good. I’ll tell you about it one day.”

It’s the first time that Craig has indicated Luke might be involved in his future. In Luke’s landscape the squid, sleeping in a disorganised knot of limbs under one of the trees, opens its eyes quickly as if it has just overheard wonderful news.

“I’d like that.”

They look at one another quite plainly for a second or two, a quiet acknowledgment that it might be nice to discuss other things at another time together.

Craig brings them back to earth.

“We should get going.”

Luke drains the gritty coffee in one go. “I’m going to the powder room first. I’ll see you back at the car.”

Powder room! Craig sniggers to himself as he heads back to the car.

Powder room! Luke mentally kicks himself for using such a prissy expression.

Luke takes over this driving this time. “You’ll have to direct me when we get there,” he says to Craig, “when we get to Swansea. Is it far from the city?”

Craig is looking out the window, waiting for Wales to appear. His landscape once more is one giant cemetery and his sees the funeral procession, the sad winding line of slow cars, the day his mother was buried.

“It’s a couple of miles,” he says quite calmly. “You need to get onto the A474 just before we get into Swansea proper.”

The second leg of the journey is quieter. The early start catches up with them both; Craig stares from the window, his landscape cool and bleak; Luke concentrates on his driving.

“Do you mind if we put some music on?” he asks Craig after a while.

“I haven’t got anything in the car,” he answers.

“There’s a couple of CDs in the pocket on the front of my backpack,” Luke jerks his thumb over his shoulder. “Okay if we play one of those?”

So they listen to one of Luke’s compilations. Craig recognises some of it, other songs remind him how old he is.

“You have mixed taste,” Craig says to Luke.

Luke smiles as he stares fixedly at the road. “It one of the things I really like about myself,” he says with pride.

“Your music?” The thought interests Craig, he sits up slightly, tuning into something he never knew about Luke.

“Well, you know, I haven’t read that much and I don’t look like the blokes in those gay magazines and half the time in those ads on Gaytime I don’t know what they’re talking about when they mention movies and everything but I know I have great taste in music and I have a really good CD and vinyl collection.”

“So is that what you look for, is that what you ask other blokes about? Music?”

Luke is alarmingly frank. “I look for blokes who want to have sex with me,” he grins. “I dunno, most of the time they’re lying anyway, aren’t they, lying about their age or their hair or the size of their dicks.”

Craig chortles. “I love how they all tell you they have ten inches.”

Luke laughs too. “I know! You want to give them a ruler and show them how to use it.” Luke assumes his strict voice. “ ‘Now this number here means four inches’.”

“What kind of blokes have you met?”

“Oh, you know. You saw my ad.”

Craig has almost memorised it. “Hmmm, it said you wanted someone in their thirties with dark hair.”

“Well, that’s pretty much what I get.”

“You meet a lot of guys there?”

Luke shrugs. “Yeah, s’pose. I mean, it’s easy, isn’t it? You can sit around in your scungiest clothes, flirt all you want, go out for a night, have a good time and then you never have to see them again.”

Craig wonders if Luke’s attitude is really that blasé. “You never hope that, you know, you might get a bit more?”

“No.” Luke is looking straight ahead. “Why? Do you?”

Craig turns his head and looks out of the window. “Oh, sometimes, but I reckon it would be pretty rare. It’s like you said, most of the guys there just want you to get them off.”

“You met a lot of guys?”

“I did for a while. I guess…” Craig thinks carefully. “Well, as you say, you can just meet people and do your thing and never see them again. That was about … I mean, that worked for me.”

They’re quiet as they both think about relationships. “You must have been pissed off when you saw me the other night,” Luke says.

Craig’s not sure. “I think I was shocked more than anything. I never really thought I’d see you again. “ He turns around to see if he can get some clues as to what Luke is thinking. “Why? Were you pissed off to see me?”

Luke wonders if now is the time to say how much it meant to see Craig again.

Maybe some other time.

“No, more…scared, I think. I mean, you might have decked me, God knows you had every reason to.” Craig says nothing so Luke goes on. “Later, like, the next day, I thought it was really strange that we should sort of pick each other like that, you know, without knowing who we were.”

But it’s not really the right time of place to talk about these things. Both of them are filing it in their landscapes, thinking how they might be able to uncover it together when they feel a bit different.

“So what do you think of Wales?”

Luke hadn’t even noticed they had crossed the border. “It’s bloody beautiful,” he smiles. “But not as beautiful as London.”

The Coed Gwilym Cemetery is on the Pontardawe Rd, no more than four miles out of Swansea. It is jammed between two disused rail yards and surrounded by small scraps of suburbs, neat residential districts set on streets with names that Luke cannot even read properly, let alone pronounce.

They have stopped not far from the cemetery where an enterprising young man is selling bunches of flowers from a road side stall.

Craig bends over buckets of roses and lilies that are wrapped in coloured cellophane. He is quiet now, making precise choices of what flowers he wants to take his mum.

Luke sits in the car which he has parked nearby, flicks him a glance every few seconds but cannot bear to watch. It seems as if Craig is undertaking a sensitive, personal duty and should do so unmolested.

“Nice,” he says gently when Craig returns but neither want to explore the flowers any further.

They drive down the road to the large gates which are still closed. For a moment Luke’s heart sinks - they may have to sit here and wait for hours – but Craig is unlocking his door.

“You can walk in,” he says quietly, not looking at Luke. “You just can’t drive in before 11am.”

“Oh.” Luke wonders what the time is. It can’t be more than 10am.

He follows Craig through a small unlatched gate into the burial ground, the sound of the gravel that covers every cemetery in the world crackling beneath his shoes.

They say nothing. Craig seems to know exactly where he is going, Luke follows a step or two behind, pointedly avoiding looking at the graves. The further they go, them more Luke feels that he and Craig are the last two live people on the earth.

It seems they walk for miles but when Craig finally slows down and starts taking smaller steps, Luke can still see out to the main road.

He stops a few feet from Craig, who is standing in front of a very new looking grave that sits right next an older, more weathered grave. The older grave is dull and steel grey; the new grave is freshly concreted and a bland kind of cream. The graves share a wide, taupe coloured, highly polished stone. The inscription on the right has seen storms and sun for many years; the inscription on the left  
is snowy white, only cut into the stone a short time ago.

Luke looks at the stones as if he is staring at someone with bad burns – knowing he shouldn’t, unable to tear his eyes away. GILMORE, the names read in fixed letters that defy any argument, DIED, it says resolutely.

There’s a small stone bench a few feet away. He turns to Craig, about to say, “I’ll be over there, take all the time you want,” but Craig is so far from him now, staring at the grave, gently crouching before it, trying to smile but opening slowly to grief for his dead mother. Luke barely hears him say, “Hello mam,” in the quietest voice that seems torn and uneven.

It is pitiful but Luke steels himself - he has hard things to do so goes to take his watch and wait until he is needed.

Craig’s legs won’t hold his weight any longer. He sits neatly on the grassy patch next to the grave, his knees drawn up, his eyes on the flowers. For some seconds his mind is completely blank but through the empty space his landscape rises, first the obvious things, then the dimly lit things, then his mother, her eyes pure and blue, dressed to the nines in her good frock for the christening, her slim hand studded with her wedding rings lifted to her forehead. Craig rewinds it all, back to the point where his brother says, Mum’s going, she’s got a headache, and the guilt and shame collapse on him. He hears himself say, I’m so sorry, I wished I’d driven you, if I’d taken you home I might have noticed and got you to a doctor and you’d still be here with me.

He gently rolls the scene around the way you might swish clear liquid in a test tube. The worst parts of his landscape, the most selfish, most precious and jealously guarded pieces we all have flush to the surface and the loss starts to rock him with sobs he fights still.

I’m so sorry, he chokes, and all the things that make him sorry rush over his landscape as a powerful surf: sorry I disappointed you, so sorry I didn’t get married or go to college or work in a bank like you hoped I might, so sorry I wasn’t everything I might have been, so sorry I didn’t save you.

He sees it as clearly a he did this morning when he stepped from his flat and looked to the pale sky – his own regrets and apologies, so pitiful only because they remain unchallenged by her blessing, her reassurance to him that yes, you are perfect and yes, I love you just as you are. His landscape submerges and now he is all alone in a hard cruel world with no advocate and no forgiveness and that absence drives the sobs up further and he cries for her unashamedly, cries for his own solitude in his ugly world.

And then, in that dark place, a warm arm gently slips over his shoulder, strong, pulling him so slightly to one side. There’s a gentle weight in his hair, the slight touch of someone leaning in to him. “I’m not ready,” Craig says, “I won’t be long,” but the voice says no, no, we don’t have to go, and the whisper in his ear stamps on his heart for all time.

“Everything’s okay. I just wanted to remind you that you’re not alone.”

He turns, eyes glued tight with tears, to rest his face under that warmth that is so welcome, and has been so badly missed.

The person observing from the road might just see one man briefly comforting another who is clearly in the early stages of mourning.

Up close the scene would appear no different.

But from the inside, the complex theories and equations start to flash in the light and Craig knows then that the moment he saw Luke striding towards him in the bar he was back in his life.

And Luke, stroking gently with his free hand, holding Craig strongly with his other, knows that hardest bit is over and from here it can only get easier.


End file.
